


Grim Grinning Ghosts (Come Out to Socialize)

by IncurableNecromantic



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Enoch Grange Gets Fondled in an Attic, Herod Blackwell Shows His Mettle, Humanized AU, M/M, okay I know that's obscure but go with it, really it's just good seasonal fun all 'round, rival haunted houses AU, trust me it's fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 16:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4927510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncurableNecromantic/pseuds/IncurableNecromantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Owning and operating the region's premier year-round haunted attraction is not easy, especially not when you disdain the use of stage blood and chainsaws.  To have Choosy Moms publicly declaring you to be their Family-Friendly Pick for the season only makes it all the harder.</p><p>Herod Blackwell could take it all in stride, of course, if he didn't have to deal with one of his most loyal, most discerning, and most handsome customers coming back week after week for a fresh fright.  Perhaps the Touch Me Thursday special is more trouble than it's worth...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Grim Grinning Ghosts (Come Out to Socialize)

“Okay,” Lorna said, holding up a magazine. “You’re not going to believe this.”

He darted a glance up and then back to his computer screen, and lifted an eyebrow to indicate an attention he couldn’t more significantly demonstrate at the moment.

“You have to promise me you won’t scream,” Lorna went on.

Herod raised her a further eyebrow. “I don’t scream.”

“You say that now.”

“I will not scream, Lorna.”

“Okay. Take a deep breath.”

“Get on with it, if you please?”

“‘Totally blood-free and boasting no more gore than a few skeletons,’” Lorna read aloud, “'House in the Wastes has always been high in the running for haunted house awards. But what pushes this attraction over the top is the commitment to an eco-friendly and sustainable experience. All props and decorations are totally biodegradable and locally sourced, and it’s those kinds of details that make House in the Wastes the Choosy Moms Family-Friendly Pick for 2015.’”

What. He jerked his head up from his screen.

“What,” he said.

Lorna passed him the magazine and he tore it open, eyes racing over the article.

“What I can’t figure out is how they got in,” Lorna said. “We’ve been watching everybody who’s attended so far and there didn’t look to be a choosy mom in the bunch. It must be a prank, don’t you think? We’re explicitly 13 and up.”

“'Vegan’!” he barked. “They called us ‘vegan’! How can a haunted house be ‘vegan’?”

“Choosy moms, Herod. You can’t begin to understand them.”

“We’ll be a laughingstock,” he sighed. “Why didn’t they give it to Potter’s Field? They always give it to Potter’s Field.”

At the mention of the name, Lorna pretended to spit on the ground. Herod appreciated it. She was a good and loyal girl.

“'Eco-friendly’!” he roared. “Who TOLD them this? Who gives a fuck about a haunted house’s use of mud? Where did this come from?”

“Probably Wirt,” Lorna admitted.

Wirt! Perfidious little wretch! Herod had never backhanded a child in the face before. It looked like today was going to be the day.

Choosy Moms! It was hideous. He’d given so many years of his life, all his resources, all he was–indeed, the very blood of his heart–to this place. And now they were ‘family-friendly.’

The beginning of the end. It could only be a matter of time. Soon people would come to them for photos with friendly scarecrows, and if Herod didn’t die of shame he’d have to blow his own brains out.

People didn’t respect Halloween anymore. That was the problem.

It was so hard, having standards.

The obvious solution to the hardship, of course, was to simply drop those standards, but he was an artist–not that he admitted it, except when in his outraged cups–and it was the responsibility of the artist and the aristocrat to keep up appearances even when the rest of the world declined to participate. He had vision. That vision did not include anything cheap.

Splashing stage blood all over everything was extremely, appallingly cheap.

So although it was by no means ooze-free, his haunted house was indeed totally bloodless and virtually goreless, with the exception of a few bones. He relied on worse, more subtle horrors, gripped with the conviction that grounding a connection between the mundane and the truly alien was vastly more terrifying than the meager removal of concealing skin and the revelation of the mundane within. He had long theories about the roles of clarity and obfuscation in horror and if given the chance he would run at the mouth about the minute details for ages, but it all essentially boiled down to knowing what to conceal and what to illuminate.

Haunted houses were basically stripteases. Or maybe stripteases were basically haunted houses.

He wasn’t sure. It was worth considering in greater depth. And he would have plenty of time to consider it, now, because he was going to shutter the house and live in his beloved ruins until he starved.

“What have we done wrong?” he asked aloud. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Have we not changed enough? Have we changed too much? We’ve rotated one different scene every year. Last year we took Scariest Attraction in the state.”

“And most exclusive,” Lorna added.

Oh, Herod had been so pleased with that. It was so pretentious, the very notion of the boutique horror experience, but the money had been fantastic and no one screamed like an connoisseur.

“We’re completely sunk,” he said.

“That, at least, is not true,” Lorna replied.

“What?”

“Bart’s been at the phones all morning,” Lorna said. “We’ve got ticket orders pouring in.”

“What does that matter, if they all have two-point-five snivelling larva and Fido in the car?” he grumbled. “Might as well set up a shuttle to take them out to the wholesome cornfields, at this rate. What do they even think of Potter’s Field–”

Spit.

“–this year?” he asked, pulling the magazine closer and flicking through it.

“I don’t know. I don’t read their press,” Lorna sniffed. “We can spin this, I think. I mean, the important thing is that we don’t give refunds…”

“Of course I can spin it,” Herod murmured, “but for how long, is the question. If they’re going to simply laude every delicate hint of creeping nightmare and every artistic display of restraint as something as gauche as ‘all-ages,’ then I might as well swap Bart’s axe for a chainsaw and let you do your Erzsébet Báthory routine.”

“It’s a solid routine,” Lorna huffed.

Herod disagreed. He was sure he appreciated the initiative, but really. Bathing naked in a tub stage blood, nibbling on ‘finger food’ and attended by priapic corpses? That was not horror. The girl was just frustrated.

Not that he blamed her. But if anyone was going to be sumptuously waited on by the, ahem, risen dead in his haunted house, by God it was going to be him.

“It is, and I’m sure one day, when you have a house of your own, you will scandalize the community with your lascivious cavortings,” Herod replied. “But until then you work under my rotten roof and so you shall abide in my rotten aesthetic, and that aesthetic does not partake of carnal sights.”

“Penises are scary.”

“You’re not wrong.” Herod flicked through the pages and huffed in aggravated relief as he spotted Potter’s Field as a headline. He started scanning the write-up. “All the same, we don’t need to rely upon the twisted intersection of sexuality and…”

Lorna frowned a little. “And…?”

Herod struggled mightily for a few instants, mastering himself, before he managed to speak.

“'Potter’s Field,’” spit, “'once the go-to for families seeking seasonal harvest fun, has recreated itself as a terrifying adventure in the great outdoors. With no explicit horrors to test your composure–with some exceptions for those unfortunate enough to participate in the hay ride–Potter’s Field focuses instead on slowly whittling away at your nerves until you’re shaking. Absolutely harrowing, Potter’s Field is definitely not for children and more than earns its spot at the year’s pick for Scariest Halloween Attraction. Pro Tip: Do not go after dark.’”

Lorna covered her mouth with her hand.

Herod put the magazine on his desk. “Thank you for calling this to my attention. Please go.”

Lorna bit her lips together and nodded her head. She closed the door behind her.

She really was an exceptional employee. Leagues better than Bart, certainly. Someday she would have her own house and it probably would be spectacular.

Herod carefully retrieved the scissors from his desk drawer and cut out the reviews for House in the Wastes and Potter’s Field. He put them in an envelope, scrawled the year on the front, and tucked them into the box of reviews.

He took his lighter and the magazine into the bathroom and lit the damned this to burn.

Kid-friendly? All-ages? Vegan?

Fine.

He’d show them how kid-friendly he could be.

***

They were no two ways about it: Potter’s Field was where you went to enjoy the harvest season, and House in the Wastes was where you went to be scared out of your mind.

Enoch had always held this as the great natural law of autumn. His business and his competitor–and he said “competitor” for lack of a better term–had been neatly splitting the community down the center for almost ten years. Enoch took all the families with small children, and House in the Wastes took the young people and the grown-ups looking for a thrill. Surely there was some overlap, date nights being what they were, but generally speaking it was as harmonious as could ever be imagined.

And then, of course, there was this year.

Poor Miss Lulilly, the costumer, was down with chemo treatments, and in her absence Mrs. Stringer was filling in. Mrs. Stringer’s last routine as a seamstress had been in the year of our Lord 1975, and unfortunately even her sweetest handiwork had turned out looking more nightmarish than not. The actors wore them, of course, because what else could they use?

Unfortunately, the usually friendly scarecrows of yesteryear were now utterly horrifying, and no amount of benevolent goodwill could excuse their appearance. Children wept.

To be perfectly candid, Enoch was not as torn up about that as he probably should’ve been. But it wasn’t hitting their ticket sales–not by a long shot–and as word had spread that Potter’s Field was a nightmare this year, ticket sales grew and grew.

It was becoming kind of fun, actually, really scaring people. They introduced a hay ride and they were pulling carts at maximum capacity. Grown men sobbed when lost in the fields.

And even with the slight change, they were Potter’s Field. When they took the masks off, they were farm and country people with cider and little games ready for the children. They were what they had always been.

Or so he’d thought! He’d actually called Haunted Attractions magazine when the list of October activities had been published, for he was not at all certain that they hadn’t mixed up the review of Potter’s Field with that of House in the Wastes.

No, they said. They really were that impressed with the mud.

Naturally, Enoch’s first step was to go on House in the Wastes’ website and see how they were taking it. And oh, rapture. They were furious.

They weren’t so fraught as to show any splashy gore all over their page, but he hadn’t been throwing friendly elbows with this business for a decade to not be able to tell when they were shifting their strategy. It manifested as one small notice on the sidebar, but it made Enoch’s eyes widen.

Touch Me Thursday.

He had to know.

Thursday was a slow enough day for them, so he gathered up the few people who weren’t working. It was a community affair, their little business, and on such a rotation it wasn’t hard to get out of town for an evening. Miss Clara jumped to come with him, for she’d always liked visiting their competitor more than was perfectly seemly, and brought her brother along with her. Miss Elizabelle had Dr. Summer’s assurance that her heart was sound, so she piled into the car with the young people and they set off for an evening engagement.

The boy working the counter greeted them and told them the legend of the house. It was a script that Enoch himself had all-but memorized, by this point: the house had been abandoned for years, reclaimed by the forces of the forest until a hapless family attempted to inhabit it, opening the attic and disturbing an ancient thing within. Now that thing had twisted the family to its bidding, and every year it found new servants to feed its monstrous appetite.

The young man explained the nature of the Thursday special, told them the rules, and asked if they would consent. They signed their waivers and paid their money, and were waved into the house.

A thrill ran up Enoch’s spine as soon as the door had closed behind them and he felt his heart begin to pound from anticipation. Oh, it wasn’t very good of him, but then again a body just didn’t get into this kind of business, if they weren’t a little too fond of Halloween.

And Enoch was profoundly, astonishingly–some might even say ‘sickly’–too fond of Halloween.

He had no idea what the actual building of House in the Wastes had been before it had been turned into a haunted house, but as it was it stood as an artistically dilapidated Victorian mansion deep in the woods. It was so intimate, permitting groups of no more than six at a time, and it was so supremely polished, with invisible staff members sliding out of the walls at a moment’s indication that their presence was wanted. It accommodated a few rooms every year, swapping out one exhibit every season for something new and spectacular.

And then there was one who never changed. Enoch had rarely encountered him. He alone among the performers remained totally in the concealing dark, but after so many years Enoch had managed to glean that he wore a fur coat, a set of antlers, and a pair of contact lenses that made his irises glow white. (He sometimes liked to think that the man wore nothing but those.)

Although he supposed that was the ancient forest creature of the script, Enoch had never imagined forest creatures to have such stunningly beautiful voices. Some years he sang. Those years were always Enoch’s favorites, because in addition to being sublimely gifted, the master of the house been in this business long enough to know when to use it and when to keep horribly quiet.

Glorious stuff, really.

The foyer was empty, but a door at the back creaked open and a low growl began to throb through the air.

Enoch grinned and help shepherd their group along.

There was a thing in the room with them, and they stuck by the walls, trying not to get smacked by the slow-turning axles of the large mill grinder. It was perhaps a strange opening act, in such an otherwise refined and delicate house. But after all, just because the rest of the place was all pins and needles and creeping dread didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of room for a good sledgehammer to the limbic system.

The wheels turned and strained as a huge animal, lashed to one of the spokes, dragged the apparatus around. It had to be some kind of animatronic device. Its eyes glowed. The creature spotted them and lunged, its frothing, snapping jaws and scrabbling, straining claws established a thrill of panic that was hard not to appreciate.

They hurried past it and into the next room.

Ten animal-headed creatures snapped their attention onto them and Clark, in particular, jumped. Enoch grinned to himself, trying to hide it as the beautiful woman at the head of the table lifted her veil and revealed her eyes, all black and gushing oil. All the animal heads opened their mouths and began to ooze black oil.

“There’s something wrong with the children,” the woman said to them, gesturing to the banquet of rotting food. “They’re not eating enough. Please, eat something, before my father returns…”

Miss Clara scoffed quietly beside him, but Enoch gave her a little nudge and they observed as the Father arrived and menaced the party of animal-headed children and his pleading daughter. They were chased out of the dining room and processed into the next room, just in advance of the approaching clatter of the Father.

“Not their best work, this year,” Miss Clara murmure, as they walked on. “I like the animal heads, but…”

“Perhaps they’re leading up to something,” Enoch suggested.

“It’s certainly not deserving of the Choosy Moms award,” Miss Clara said.

Next came a hunter sequence that had Miss Elizabelle wrapped around one of Enoch’s arms and Clark wrapped around the other. The old man with the axe haunted them through a faux forest for what felt like an age, before they found themselves pulled along on a quest to hunt for a ghost, led by a madman mumbled and paced in tormented unrest over a mysterious womanly figure.

They were herded into a claustrophobic closet to watch a phantom beauty traverse a haunted ballroom, and their lunatic guide was drawn quickly into her arms as she revealed her undead nature.

They stumbled through a swampland set up in the dark backyard, and tried to escape the eerie, croaking, half-human things that clasped their ankles and begged for help.

Miss Clara was finally shivering and Miss Elizabelle had long since started mewling when they proceeded up the steps into the second floor of the house. Clark was as pale as milk.

Enoch was in heaven.

They were proceeding down the second floor hallway, dodging hands that reached out of the walls towards them, when they heard a little bit of sniffling. In the dimness they could see a little rounded shape and they approached hesitantly, waiting for the scare.

It was a child, dressed in ordinary street clothes. The boy peeped up at them and squinted a little.

“Oh dear,” Miss Elizabelle murmured. “Are you all right?”

“Have you seen my brother?” the boy said. “I lost him.”

Miss Clara frowned and knelt down beside him. “…aren’t you a little young to be part of the haunted house?”

“I’m not,” the boy said. “My mom dropped us off and said she’d be back, but I don’t know where Wirt is…”

Well, Haunted Attractions magazine had a lot to answer for.

Miss Clara smiled and offered her hand to the boy. “I bet your brother is looking for you right now. Why don’t you come with us, and we can find a way out of the house really quickly? Will you feel better with some grown-ups around?”

The boy sniffled and nodded his head, and Miss Clara took him by the hand. The boy got to his feet and immediately clung to her leg, so Miss Clara stooped to pick him up and wedged him on her hip.

“Poor little scamp,” Miss Elizabelle sighed. She squeaked and bounced away from one of the wall hands. “Oh! So impertinent–”

“It’s all right,” Miss Clara said, stroking the boy’s hair. “We just need to find an actor and dip out through the emergency exit. I’ll stay with this young man until we find his brother. You all should go on through the rest of the house.”

“I’ll see if I can find an actor,” Clark said, brave in the face of a tiny sufferer. They hurried down the rest of the hall and sure enough found an actress waiting to direct them.

“Sorry,” Miss Clara said to the actress. “I hate to break character, but we have a little emergency here. Can you help us? This young man’s lost his group.”

The actress immediately frowned and looked the boy over.

“Oh, no. Poor little guy. Um…at this point in the house, the fastest way is to get through there,” the actress said, gesturing towards one of the doors. “That’ll take you to the emergency exit and you should be fine from there. Let me guide you the rest of the way–”

The actress brought Miss Clara to one of the door and they disappeared just as a horrific thing, engulfed in flames, reared up towards them from the hall. Miss Elizabelle and Clark screamed and splintered, as the creature grabbed each of them by a wrist and threw them into a room. Then the thing–a gorilla, by the looks of it, charming reference to Poe–turned to Enoch and menaced him up the attic stairs.

Well, he would go alone, if they insisted.

He stifled his grin, considering it rather insulting, and entered the attic just as he heard Miss Clara begin screaming downstairs.

Oh, this was so much fun.

***

Herod knew the one he wanted as soon as he stepped into the house.

The big man was a repeat customer, one of the most loyal. He appeared once a year and only once, and Herod had been half-hoping that he would choose to visit on a Thursday. This was an absolute treat.

They’d navigated the house fairly well, although the big man seemed almost completely unstartled. Even Quincy’s masterful portrayal of a mad man didn’t elicit a shudder, not even when he and Maguerite fell into one another’s arms in a paroxysm of desperate fear and passion.

(Those two needed to sort that all out. Herod didn’t deny that it worked, for a given value of work, but one of these days they were going to make love in the middle of a scene and he was going to have to fire them.)

The swamp scene was infinitely improved by the ability to touch. Slimy, rubbery fingers caressing ankles and voices that croaking for help had the young lady trotting to keep away, and the young man had been clinging to the older gentleman like he meant to rip the man’s shirt off.

They’d collected Gregory at the hall of hands and Lorna had pushed them in the direction of the “emergency exit.”

Now came the real fun.

Herod had always prized intimacy as the key to real and present terror. Oh, there was always mass trauma to be considered, but in those cases you could often reach out and find comfort. Real horror was personal and individualistic: just you, the ceiling of your midnight bed chamber, and the furtive footfall on the hall stair.

So they split them up. Four at a time made for such a lovely, intimate experience, and causing that schism was always so pleasant. Jimmy in the gorilla suit made for a pretty little homage to Grandpa Edgar, especially with the faux flames rippling through the fur, but he really was only the intervening scene, to scatter them. The actual scare was better left to the professionals.

Each performer had only two minutes or less with their victim, creating an experience for each person that was wholly unique. At the moment, Madame Adelaide was busily traumatizing the young lady with the invaluable assistance of young Gregory–suffer the little children. How’s that for “family-friendly”?–while Lorna had her sport with the young man. Bart seemed almost a little too charmed by the older lady, but as long as he hunted her like he was supposed to, Herod supposed there was precious little he could really do to object.

He didn’t like Bart. Bart was a disappointment.

But he didn’t have to think about Bart in this moment. He was doing what he’d been born to do, and everything was so beautifully simple. Here was his victim, bought and paid for and waiting for Herod to do what he did best.

It was heaven. Especially because he didn’t have to restrain that sick thing that always itched to touch his victims.

This might actually be one of his better ideas.

The man was all his, separated from his compatriots and plunged into almost-pitch darkness. Herod had spent forever outfitting this room with a subsonic pulse, and he smiled to see it go to work on the man. It was worth having to live with the reeking aromatherapeutic effect of decaying funeral flowers and burning meat, and to have to wait for quite a while in the devastatingly cold air, for the pleasure of watching it disorient his victim.

He hummed his hymn, lighting up the mannequin at the end of the attic path. The eyes in that thing were made to look like his own and Herod grinned to see his victim tense as he realized the eyes were upon him. His victim paced forward, following the cue and darting away from the nearby sound effect of wood-chopping.

Goodness, he was a great handsome beast of a thing, when one got up close. He had to make this good. Herod prowled the perimeter of the room, glancing out of lowered eyes so as not to give away his position. He moved to one of the acoustic warps and whispered.

“So you like being touched,” he breathed, and watched his victim jerk his head to follow the noise at his left ear. “We’ll see.”

He could hear the man swallow. “…first time in ten years that we’ve talked.”

Herod’s eyes widened against his will. Oh. He had a fan.

That was distracting.

He reached out and stroked down the man’s spine, feeling his body snap rigid before Herod tore his hand away and dropped silently to the floor, unencumbered by his usual accoutrement and hidden in the dark. He held his breath and scuttled away as the man turned to chase his tormentor.

Herod got behind him in a trice and slid a hand up the inside of the man’s right calf. The man stepped away, alarmed, and Herod smiled at he pushed and prodded him toward the end of the path.

The mannequin’s eyes extinguished and Herod took its place, peering at his victim as the man wheeled around and spotted him.

Herod reached out and almost burned fingers as he brushed them across his victim’s throat. The man’s skin was so warm, or perhaps Herod’s fingers were only so cold. Either way, he hissed quietly.

“You’re going to taste so good,” he breathed. The subsonic pulse deepened, right on cue, and made the walls pound. Herod made a wet noise with his mouth.

His victim was breathing heavily. Herod dropped the noose around the man’s neck and stepped away.

“I can’t wait to drink you dry,” he sighed. He yanked the noose tight and hit the trapdoor.

The bottom fell out of the floor beneath his victim and the fake noose gave, letting the man plunge unharmed to the bodybag-cushioned floor below.

Herod leaned down to consider his fallen client.

The man was lying on his back, panting for air, and grinning up at the trapdoor. His eyes met Herod’s and his smile grew even wider.

“Thank you,” the man said.

Herod jumped a little and snapped the floor closed, giving himself a little shake. He was expected elsewhere. It was fun to spend a little time with a man on his own, but he was needed at the end. The perils of a small team of actors, alas.

He left his room and took his position near the exit. They came soon enough, the young lady clinging to Herod’s victim and hiding her face in his arm.

Mm, of course.

Herod reached out in the dark and stroked freezing fingers across her neck, tucking her hair over her shoulder. He rolled his eyes up to look at his own victim.

“Stay,” he crooned, letting his fingers card through the girl’s hair as she raced to the other side of her protector, sobbing. “There’s no point in leaving. You can’t escape me. You’re all mine, now.”

The man let out a little groan and helped the girl flee to the foyer.

Herod sighed. Yes, that seemed about right.

He needed a cigarette. But no! The next wave was coming. He’d be expected. One couldn’t rest on one’s laurels, and anyway he’d already had his treat for the season. Back to work.

He hoped they would tweet about it. Maybe that would blow a Choosy Mom or two out of the water, knowing how up close and personal the actors liked to get.

***

“Pardon me, young man,” Enoch said to the boy who’d greeted them, as they passed the exit. Miss Clara was tucked, sobbing, under his wing. The boy who’d taken their waivers looked up and gave him the blind, panicked look of a startled young man helplessly met with a pretty, weeping woman. “Can we ask about the well-being of the young child? I’m afraid my companion is a little upset.”

“Child?” the boy echoed. His eyes widened. “Oh jeez–Greg!”

The boy dashed into the house, yelling. Enoch patted Miss Clara on the back, murmuring soothing nonsense to her.

He listened to the little bit of banging and yelling, but at last the boy emerged with the child in tow.

“Greg! This is for over 13 only!” the boy was yelling at his smiling brother. The child had black ooze caked onto his cheeks and under his eyes, and all down his chin. He’d been one of the oil victims, apparently. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

“I was helping, Wirt! Miss Adelaide said she couldn’t do it without me,” the child said. “Hi, Miss Clara! Did you like our show?”

Miss Clara picked herself up from Enoch’s chest, leaving a wet patch of tears on his shirt, and whirled around to face the child. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him.

“Thank goodness!” she cried. “Enoch, I’m never coming back here. You don’t know what I saw in that…that…!” She broke into fresh tears and her still-shaking but exhilarated brother helped her to her feet.

Enoch really hoped House in the Wastes had some kind of camera system running. You couldn’t ask for better promotional footage than that.

For his own part, Enoch very much wanted to go back in and be the one to see whatever Miss Clara had seen.

Well, almost. What he particularly ached to do was to go back in and spend a little more time getting fondled by the master of the house. Those beautiful eyes alone…who wouldn’t want to stay, when so prettily ordered?

He might be back next Thursday. This was a phenomenal idea.

***

Herod tightened his scarf and looked around Potter’s Field, deeply annoyed to find himself impressed.

It was a cornfield in a farm town. Big deal. It wasn’t even a dedicated system. They only bothered running the damned thing September through November. At least House in the Wastes was a year-round operation. (They did incredible business on Valentine’s Day.)

Lorna had her hands wrapped around a paper cup of cider. “Well, they’re not wrong about the costumes.”

Herod was forced to agree on that point. The horror was pulled off with a remarkably light touch, and if he thought he’d been dealing with a less professional outfit, he might’ve even imagined it to be unintentional. No splashy gore or rubbery masks. Some performers wore what looked almost like real pumpkins, carved with unmoving, unexpressive faces, and others work burlap or canvas masks that did not appear to have been intentionally terrifying.

He liked it. He was big enough to admit that it was very clever. It seemed that he and the owner of this haunt were in agreement on the subject of deft horror.

A little corporate espionage was in order. Maybe their costumer would accept a position with the enemy, if they floated a sufficiently tender offer. Herod thought it pretty likely that he’d be able to get the information out of someone at Potter’s Field, considering the looks the young ticket taker in the inexplicable regency costume was trading with Lorna.

Lorna fluffed her hair a little.

Yes, he could probably make some use of that.

They’d traveled through the corn maze and there was some little scrap of substance in the Haunted Attractions article there. The costumes really were a little unsettling, when they were met with suddenly and silently in the quiet field. Herod’s own heart had leapt once, not that he’d ever admit to such a thing, and Lorna had grabbed his hand on one occasion.

She’d been so embarrassed, and rightly so. He was never going to let her forget it.

The sun was finally going down. Herod pushed his hands into his coat pockets. “I’m staying after dark.”

“What? But we open at nine.”

“Close the Beast room for the night, then. You have the mannequin and the voice recording, if you need it.”

Lorna frowned a little. “Is this a primadonna thing? Are you going to make me beg you to come along? Insist the show can’t go on without you?”

“I know perfectly well that the show can’t go on without me,” Herod replied. “But you’ll just have to stump along as best as ever you can in my absence.”

Lorna’s eyes lit up. “So…I’m in charge?”

“Absolutely not,” Herod said sternly. “You’re responsible for the maintenance of your place of work.”

“That’s the same thing as being in charge,” Lorna said gleefully. “I’m leaving now. I can get the bath tub ready as a final exhibit in time to open–”

“I will have you assassinated.”

“I’ll call it Salle de Pain,” Lorna said, sketching an imaginary banner with her hands.

Herod glanced at her, eyebrows rising. He looked out over the fields again. “…if you really call it that, you can do it for one night.”

“Although now that I think of it, it doesn’t make sense for the countess to have a coterie of boytoys. Bathory should be attended by nubile young maid servants, don’t you agree?”

“No sex, Lorna.”

“No sex! Just beautiful, exsanguinated young ladies,” Lorna replied. “Someone about as pale as me. And Bathory herself really should be a redhead, if we can at all swing it.”

The ticket taker wasn’t going to know what had hit her.

“Well, make the offer and see what happens,” Herod said. “It’s a hell of a meet-cute, I suppose.”

“You’re really staying for the evening?" 

“I really am.”

“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Herod nodded and watched Lorna wander off. He spent a few minutes dithering on his phone and dodged a small stream of happy, playing children on his way to the smoker’s section. He bought a glass of hard cider and lit a clove cigarette, reading the tweets from last week.

‘Beast room can’t be legal! Totally unsafe! This place needs to be inspected.’

‘SOOOOO inapprpriate for children! Disturbing imagery, rude ticket taker, scary themes. #ChoosyMoms messed up!’

‘Best haunted house in the region got even better. #touchmethursday is fantastic. Don’t miss it.’

Herod smiled to himself and breathed out a plume of smoke. He scrolled down.

‘Definitely grownups-only attraction. #touchmethursday really pushes the limits. Swear I got slapped on the ass.’

Slander!

There would have to be team meeting about this.

“Mind if I join you?”

Herod glanced up and, mirible visu, beheld his favorite customer standing before him with a smile on his handsome, broad face. A little surprised by the coincidence, Herod brought his cigarette back to his mouth.

“Not at all,” he said. Of course, the man didn’t recognize him. How could he? “Be my guest, if you can stand the smoke.”

“Thanks,” Herod’s victim said, smiling. He sat down. “Here with family?”

If this had come from anyone else, Herod would’ve brushed him off.

“No, I’m afraid not,” he replied. “I’m all alone.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. This place always seems to me to be a family affair. Are you enjoying it, in spite of that?”

“The liquor is excellent,” Herod replied, running a fingertip across the lip of his cup. “But we’ll see if the horror lives up to the bombast and exaggeration of reviewers. I’m eager to contribute a healthy dose of perspective.“

His victim smiled at him and took a sip of his own drink. “So you’re an epicure of the terrible, are you?”

Herod almost grinned. Well, well, that was not the kind of thing one expected to be asked so immediately. He’d almost think he was being flirted at. “Yes, I think that’s how I’d describe it. I don’t scare easily.”

“Now, that’s just an open invitation, don’t you think?”

Herod lifted his eyebrows. “Forgive me, but the day a child’s hayride startles me into genuine fear is the day I yield my profession of more than twenty years.”

“And what might that profession be?” his victim asked. “And is there a name attached to it?”

Herod stifled his smile and offered his gloved hand across the table. His victim took it. His hand was warm, even though he wasn’t wearing gloves. That probably couldn’t be healthy, but in the cool air it was certainly pleasant. “Herod Blackwell. As to profession, I–”

“Enoch?” his victim’s lady friend called from one of the food tents. Enoch looked up. “Could you come here for a second?”

“Pardon me,” Enoch said to Herod, as he got up from the table. “Remember where we stopped, won’t you?”

Herod gave him a thin smile. “Of course.”

Enoch walked away towards his young woman–which, oh, which bundle of bouncing brats was likely to be theirs?–and Herod returned his attention to his phone.

He was only just getting to the point where he’d seriously begin micromanaging his staff from afar when the ticket taker hopped up on an overturned crate.

“The hayride will be beginning soon,” the young lady said into a microphone. “Please be advised that this year’s hayride is not recommended for children under thirteen. You can form a line right here at the maze gate.”

Herod sneered to himself a little before getting up and pacing over to the gathering queue. Better to get this over with sooner rather than later. He might be able to make some of his late night shows, if he moved quickly.

He managed to find a seat in the second cart, wedging himself into the corner seat on a hay bale so he’d have a little back support, and stowed his phone in his pocket. The cart filled up quickly, and amidst young couples and gaggles of students, he saw a few families with older children. Far be it for him to wish success on a rival, but he really hoped that Potter’s Field could substantiate its claims regarding victims thirteen and up.

The hayride jerked to life and drew them into the cornfields. Herod settled in and watched the corn pass them by, almost relaxing as they drew further and further away from the lighted festival area.

The music rose out of the corn first.

Herod smiled to himself. Beautiful first moment, he had to admit. Around him, people seized each other’s hands or used the excuse to wrap their arms around their dates, but Herod simply tilted his head back and listened. A haunting hymn began to bloom sweetly into the air, melody and rhythm taking over while the voices were too far away to clearly make out the lyrics.

It came steadily closer, and Herod became aware of faces watching their passage through the field. He twitched a little at the uncomfortable realization and his own inability to be certain just when they’d begun to appear. They didn’t move, except to turn their heads to watch, and around them the fields of corn were very still.

Their heads were encased in what did seem to be real pumpkins, cut into either blankly unreadable or rather pretty expressions. They sang sweetly as the tractor drew the ride into a barn and one performer stepped out of the corn to stand in the doorway.

Within, a single spot-lit performer sat on a haybale, carving a few head almost exactly like his own. Herod watched, intrigued with the performer’s stillness and solemnity as he turned his gaze to his audience and watched them roll by.

Well! Potter’s Field seemed to have some chops this year. Nothing horrifying, granted, but creeping horror there was indeed.

They passed out of the barn and along the path, opened out to the night sky again. Another song was rising in the fields, and this time Herod could pick out a few shapes against the dark sky. They stood on high poles set into the fields, swaying slowly back and forth. At first he thought they were scarecrows.

They were birds. Performers fitted with bird skull masks and fabric draped across their arms to look like wings swooped down over the hayride, cawing like crows. Amidst the bird noise, Herod could pick out whispers from near by.

“We’re hungry. Give us your dreams.”

“Feed us your dreams.”

Herod smirked. A little overt, wasn’t that? A bit too theoretical. How utterly cute.

Someone in the dark leaned close and breathed in his ear, “You smell different when you’re asleep.”

A thrill ran up Herod’s spine and he nearly gasped. He sat up straighter.

Oh. That was the stuff.

Around his pounding heart, he swore he was stealing that line.

The tractor pulled them beside a shack. A strange creature with mottled, pulpy head like a turkey paused in what appeared to be the action of sweeping its porch and gobbled at them as they passed. The sheer strangeness of it made Herod’s skin prickle and he was relieved, despite himself, when they pressed on and moved away from the shack.

They passed from the shack almost immediately into another barn, and found themselves stopped in the middle of what seemed to be some kind of party. Caught in the middle of a strange harvest revel, nearly twenty performers in costume paused–Herod nursed a moment of unworthy jealousy, that they could get that many actors and costumes together for such a scene–and looked at the intruders.

The performing crowd began to murmur. Herod helplessly tensed.

“They’re not supposed to be here. Who are they?”

“Why are they here?”

“What do they want?”

Voices from all around, behind, nearby–too nearby.

“They’re here to steal our crops!”

“To ruin our party!”

And above–a low, rumbling chuckle.

“Now, hold on, everybody. Let’s not jump to any conclusions.”

A vast thing lurched out of the ceiling. It looked like a huge head, reminiscent of the pumpkin costumes, and it grinning with big, blunt teeth, its empty eyes staring down at them. A dozen coils fluttered out of its neck, trailing behind the thing like tentacles. Herod heard a few shrieks from nearby and felt his own heart ram itself against the backs of his teeth. Children began to wail.

“What brings you to our little town?” the giant thing asked. The voice…Herod tried to place the voice and couldn’t. Its tentacles waved slowly and Herod watched them, transfixed, his mouth dry.

“They’re trespassing!” one of the performers barked.

“Oh, dear,” the head said. “Yes, I see they are. Well, you all seem to have stumbled upon something you’re not supposed to see. It saddens me to have to do this, but you’re going to have to go out into the cornfields.”

The performers took up shovels and pitchforks, axes and scythes. The hay ride began to move again and Herod mastered himself, smiling a little.

“Don’t you worry, now,” the head said. “This will only hurt a moment…and then you’ll be ready to join us.”

One of its tentacles reached out and–with terrible, unerring accuracy–brushed under Herod’s chin.

Herod jumped and seized the edge of the cart in a vise grip, listening to the mocking chuckle of the monster as he trembled. If he were alone or less conscious of the terrified gazes of the other hayriders, he might have panted for breath.

As it was, he settled back into his seat and groped for some amount of nonchalance. Puppet? Animatronic?

He was taking this ride again. He had to know.

The performers followed them with tools into the field, singing a new song. They walked behind the cart for several yards before the cart paused at a cleared bit of field. Lit up by a bonfire, performers in skeleton costumes dragged themselves out of holes in the earth and drew the attention of the performers, who clustered around to give them pumpkins to wear.

The tractor used the distraction and made its escape.

Unimpressive denouement, Herod tried to tell himself. Gripping climax, but disappointing conclusion.

They pulled into the lighted carnival section once again and Herod dismounted the hay cart only to find that he still quivered. Not scared, per se. Unsettled. The imagery was…provocative.

It was a cold evening. His hands shook a little as he lit a cigarette and sucked on it for a second or two. He pulled out his phone, contemplated it, drafted a tweet, deleted it, and shoved his phone back in his pocket.

Maybe one more drink before he headed back.

He needed a little time to come up with something adequately scathing.

***

Enoch bought an RIP pass online and called the contact number. A young man picked up.

“House in the Wastes: we aren’t quitters, so the suffering never ends. How can I help you today?”

Enoch smiled a little. “Good afternoon. I have a pass to one of your performances tonight, and I understand that some of the rooms are divided off so that individuals get to interact with the performers one-on-one. Is that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is there any way to put in a request for one room or another?”

“Sorry, sir. It’s based on volume and performer discretion. It’s kind of a toss-up who gets who. We don’t really have a request function. We strive to provide all victims with a unique experience every time.”

“I see. I’d actually like to repeat an earlier experience–I have some lingering questions and I’d like to go through it again and see if I can resolve them.”

“Um. Well, I can’t promise anything, but if you come up to the desk when it’s your turn and remind me of this conversation, I’ll see what we can do to accommodate your wishes.”

“Excellent. Thank you, young man, I appreciate your time. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Our pleasure, sir. See you soon.”

***

His victim–or perhaps he should be thinking of the man as ‘Enoch’–was back. On a Thursday. This time, sans lady friend.

Very interesting. He’d never come back twice in a season before. Herod spent a few precious moments worrying if it betrayed an unseemly interest to take him again, while Lorna proclaimed that she would take the young redhead who just happened to resemble the ticket taker from Potter’s Field.

It was Adelaide’s day off, and that left only Betty and the Highwayman routine, which was nothing such a connoisseur would enjoy, and of course Bart. Herod would sooner die than leave such a loyal, excellent customer to Bart’s tender mercies. He deserved nothing less than Herod’s finest work.

Herod would see him alone. He waited for him in the cold. Jimmy led him in and Herod quietly stalked him, letting him wander for almost half a minute before sidling up behind him and petting his shoulderblades.

“Back again?” Herod purred into his victim’s ear. He drew his fingers from the man’s ear down his jaw, unable to stop himself from trying to memorize the softness of his victim’s burningly warm skin. He was going to get so sued. “I imagined you might be.”

“The atmosphere is irresistible,” Enoch admitted.

The temptation to break character was what was irresistible. He was going to get so sued.

“Something calls you back. Something you can’t deny,” Herod crooned. He bumped the effect for the skittering insect noises. “You belong here. Suffering. Helpless. Screaming in the dark. You know you belong in hell.”

Herod scratched down Enoch’s arm. Enoch shivered.

He was going to get bored being hanged so often, if he kept coming back. Thank God there was something else to the attic room to appeal.

“We can make a place for you. You’ll stay here, forever,” Herod said. “If you’re so eager to burn for me…then you’ll burn.”

Herod slipped away, glancing in time to watch Enoch shudder, and picked up the water jug. It wasn’t a large amount of water, in itself, and of course it just wasn’t the same consistency of the oil or the smell for gasoline, but the shock effect was more important, anyway. He threw it in Enoch’s face and kicked on the fireplace switch.

The fireplace roared to life with an unearthly howl and threw out a line of faux white flame out across the floor, shrieking up to Herod’s victim. The man actually stepped back and Herod hit the trap door, sending the man plummeting.

He turned off the flames and peeped over the edge of the trap door to see that his customer was being attended to.

Enoch, shirt plastered to his chest, cast an exhilarated grin up at Herod. His teeth glowed in the blacklight as he reclined on the body bag cushions.

“Oh, you are so bad,” Enoch said, voice rich with admiration.

Herod shuddered and snapped the trapdoor shut. That was more than enough of that. He paced over to the cooling system and froze himself for a few seconds in front of the fans, letting the air leech the last of Enoch’s warmth out of his fingers.

He should really get Lorna to handle him, next time. This was getting out of hand.

***

“You’re back!” Enoch grinned.

Mr. Blackwell, or he supposed it was Herod, turned to face him. He looked almost exactly as handsome as he’d looked a week before, all dark winter clothing and anemic complexion. His eyeglasses gleamed briefly opaque in the carnival lights, and Herod’s grip tightened around his red Solo cup.

“Ah–yes.”

“Did you really enjoy it enough last week to come back today?” Enoch asked.

“It was…quietly entertaining,” Mr. Blackwell replied with a fluid little shrug. “I didn’t feel myself to be cheated out of the price of the ticket.”

“I have the distinct impression that that is extremely high praise, coming from you.”

Mr. Blackwell twitched a shoulder and sipped from his cup. He seemed shy. How sweet. “I will note that you’re back, today. You must be completely bewitched by it.”

“I think that’s a pretty good way of putting it,” Enoch replied. He offered his hand to Herod and smiled as the gloved man took it. “Enoch Grange. I suppose you could say I own the place.”

Herod’s eyes widened behind his eyeglasses and his hand went stiff. “You own Potter’s Field.”

“Well, yes,” Enoch replied, giving his guest a curious look. “Is that something very alarming?”

“Ah–”

“Herod,” a young lady said, approaching. She looked very familiar and Enoch smiled blandly, trying to place her. “Can you please check your phone once in awhile? Bart says he’s been calling for twenty minutes and you haven’t–”

“I’ve turned my phone of specifically because of Bart,” Herod snapped. He remembered himself and pulled his hand away from Enoch’s. “Lorna, this is Enoch Grange. He owns Potter’s Field. Mr. Grange, Lorna.”

Lorna gave Enoch a rather pained smile and extended her hand. “Oh! What a pleasure…”

That voice. The actress who guided Miss Clara.

Enoch took her hand warmly and clasped it in both of his. “You’re from House in the Wastes!”

Lorna’s smile took on a positively rictus expression of discomfort and she shook his hand once before he released her. “Yes, um, we are…”

“You play the demonically possessed woman, correct? You’ve given our poor Clark nightmares, young lady, and I must commend you on your work.”

“Oh! Thank you. Um, I couldn’t ask for a better victim…”

Enoch turned his attention to the lovely Mr. Blackwell, who had managed to become even more handsome in the face of this fascinating additional information. “And you must be the Beast! I thought I’d recognized your voice.”

The tips of Mr. Blackwell’s ears were red. “Yes,” he said.

“You really do some incredible work,” Enoch said warmly. “I’m so flattered to have been allowed to participate in your particular performance twice. The young man–Wirt, I think?–led me to understand that some of the decision-making is performer preference…”

Mr. Blackwell turned pink.

“Partially that and partially convenience,” Mr. Blackwell said rapidly. “Next time you’ll be with someone else.”

“Well, things are picking up a little here, now that it’s October, but I do hope I can get out to visit you folks again this year…”

“I meant for next year, of course!” Mr. Blackwell replied sharply. “Of course you won’t be back this year. As far as this last time was concerned, the other acts were more tame and Lorna was busy, so I took you on just to make sure that your experience was completely satisfactory.”

Enoch chuckled. “I’d say it was more than satisfactory, yes. I thoroughly enjoyed myself–I hope I make an equally pleasing victim?”

“You don’t scare easily,” Mr. Blackwell replied. Enoch had no idea if that was a compliment or not, but he grinned as if it were.

“Touch Me Thursday is an innovation. Absolutely thrilling. Getting grabbed on the shoulders or groped on the leg adds a whole new dimension to the experience.”

Mr. Blackwell assumed an expression just this side of terror before pulling out his phone and turning it on.

“Excuse me. I need to see what my employee needs,” he mumbled, hurrying away and leaving Enoch with Lorna.

Enoch glanced at the girl, trying to see if there were any clues to what he must’ve said to embarrass Mr. Blackwell in front of the damsel, but she was looking after Mr. Blackwell with a similarly flummoxed expression. That was a little reassuring, he supposed.

The girl looked at Enoch with a small smile. “This is the busy season. He’s a little tightly wound, I think, and after all we’re in enemy territory.”

Enoch quirked an incredulous smile at her.

Lorna’s hands flew up to cover her mouth. “Oh my God. Forget I said that.”

“I certainly won’t. Enemy territory?”

Lorna moaned quietly. “Okay, so…oh my god, this is so stupid. Okay. You’re the only other game in town and even though you do a totally different thing we end up getting compared with you. But at least you stayed on your side, you know?”

“I suppose I do, yes,” Enoch said, trying not to grin outright.

“So when you took Scariest Attraction, he kind of swore, y’know, unholy vengeance on you and that’s why he’s been coming out here lately, because he wants to see what makes you guys hot shi–stuff. He did the hayride once and now he’s dragging me back because he wants me to see what it looks like, and now he’s going to act uptight and weird about everything.”

“Oh dear. The poor fellow,” Enoch said, peering past the girl to where Mr. Blackwell was pacing six steps up and six steps back, a gaunt and tensed shadow leaning into the phone at his ear.

“Plus, no one’s really comfortable to discover they’ve been groping all over their business competitor,” Lorna winced. “Especially when he’s always Mr. No-Lorna-We-Don’t-Lower-Ourselves-To-Acknowledge-Horror-In-Human-Sexuality. I imagine he’s feeling a little embarrassed to discover he’s violating his own principles.”

“Oh, he needn’t be,” Enoch mused, eyeballing his “competitor”–for lack of a better word. “After all, I returned the favor.”

***

Enoch was on the RIP list, again, on a Thursday.

Herod was mortified. As if it weren’t enough that his competitor had seen him twice at an attraction he had ever before disdained; as if it weren’t enough that his competitor had seen him adopt desperate measures; as if it weren’t enough that his competitor had knowingly let Herod make a fool of himself on several separate occasions–the man had the nerve to be handsome, friendly, and absolutely terrifying! Herod had been so shameless, and the damned man had let him do it!

This was why the audience and performer could never go off-script. Improvisation didn’t work, in situations like this. If you took away the suspension of disbelief there was nothing left but a pervert pawing at a paying customer in the dark, spouting breathless nonsense. The only mercy in the situation was that at least his competitor didn’t have any insight into the psychological details of Herod’s mental boudoir.

He’d always known that rule was a good one.

In any event, what little was left of the illusion had to be preserved at all costs, and to that end it was Lorna’s turn to take him.

“Have you seen him?” Lorna demanded. “He’s enormous! I’ll have no leverage. I won’t be able to reach his shoulders.”

“I’ll do it,” said Bart.

“Absolutely not,” Herod said to Bart. “He’s got expectations from us and I won’t give him an inferior performance, not when he actually knows what to look for out of a respectable haunt. He needs to plateau. Lorna, it must be you. Adelaide’s even smaller than you and the hag routine doesn’t play so well for men of a certain age.”

“I can do it,” Bart insisted.

“Go scratch in your dirt, Bart!” Herod snapped. “Get out of this meeting and go dust something!”

Bart stumped away. Good riddance.

“Didn’t you plan for the possibility of a three-peat visitor?” Lorna asked.

“Of course! They just get the same routine over. But we’ve never had a real connoisseur return thrice in one year! Most of them are busy going to all the haunts they can find before the season ends. They can’t bother with the same house over and over again.”

“Apparently this one can.”

“Take him.”

“No way. He won’t get any kind of good scare out of me. I don’t disorient people as well as you do, and that’s the key to scaring a man that size. You can’t give him to Bart, obviously…”

“I’d rather bar him admission, if it came to that.”

“Well, Adelaide might do all right. Oh. But I guess we can’t use Greg for him, because he knows that twist.”

Herod pulled his eyeglasses off and rubbed his nose. “It’s going to be me, isn’t it?”

“Well, is it worse for a competitor to have what you consider to be an inferior experience–”

“Don’t you dare get subjective. You’ve seen Bart’s act. It’s barely passable!”

“–or to think we’re a one-trick pony?”

“They’re the one-trick pony,” Herod replied. “Implied ritual murder, please. It’s all theoretical. Too theoretical! There aren’t any emotional stakes. How can anyone be expected to ground a personal connection in that, if it’s so–”

Herod cut himself off and felt his eyes widen. Oh. That was a hell of an idea. Well, and why not? The illusion was already shattered. They’d just invert it.

Herod sprang to his feet, brushed past a startled, curious Lorna, and shoved his glasses onto his face. He seized the door frame of his office and roared into the hall.

“Bart! Get in here!”

***

His confirmation email told him he was going to be in one of the last groups of the night, if not the very last.

So he’d have the place to himself, or nearly. Splendid.

The flaming gorilla peeled off the strangers in his group and led him toward the attic. Enoch almost bounced up the steps. How extremely thrilling! Another interview with his charming competitor, this time knowing precisely who he was and the full significance of still drawing Enoch towards him.

He could only read it as a mark of preference, and his heart swelled at the thought. There were no two ways to understand own Enoch’s admiration, at least–he was down more than a hundred dollars at this attraction and it wasn’t even mid-October. So his overtures were being recognized and received positively–bliss.

He stepped into the Beast’s lair and peered around, eager for the sight of any pretty glowing eyes. The air was frigid and something in the walls made his skin pulsate, and he tried not to hold his breath.

Someone touched his calf and slid up to the back of his knee. Enoch jumped, reflexively darting away. He heard a soft laugh and found himself with a pair of arms draped over his shoulders.

The eyes opened in front of his face. Enoch balled his hands into fists in a desperate bid to stop himself from reaching out and holding his haunter’s hips.

“Three in a row,” murmured Mr. Blackwell–ah, but he really was the Beast, wasn’t he? “You must learn to control yourself. People are going to talk.”

“And what do you suppose they’ll say?” Enoch asked, shivering.

“You must get some sick pleasure out of this,” the Beast replied. “Something that draws you back every time. You want to stand in this room and feel your blood freeze as I run my hands all over you. So much for wholesome harvest fun.”

Enoch swallowed thickly. “Is that your theory?”

“What else could it be?” the Beast asked, as the arms slid back and a pair of freezing hands ran down Enoch’s chest, strong, spidery fingers spreading. “What else would possess you to come find me in the dark, week after week? Unless it’s just professional spite, and you want to watch your rival work for you…”

Enoch made none of the range of pathetic sounds he easily could’ve emitted. That was a show of great strength. “I admire you as an artist, I assure you.”

Another soft laugh. “Yes, as an artist. That must be it…and you admire it so much, you want to hide up here with me.”

A cold hand cupped Enoch’s jaw as the other hand shifted to brush his shoulder, the eyes leaning even closer.

Enoch shuddered and squeezed his fists.

“You want to stay here,” the Beast hummed, “curl up in the dark, and die. Hm? And for a few seconds of pretending, you’re willing to let me pet you to death. Let me get my fill of you and then throw you out with the rest of the trash, if I want.”

The trapdoor opened further away in the room and belched a spout of flame. Harmlessly away from the prop, Enoch tried to catch sight of the master of the house in the harsh white light, but all he got was the impression of the white eyes in a featureless, jet-black face.

“Not tonight, though,” the Beast said, cupping the back of Enoch’s neck. “I don’t think I want you anywhere but right here.”

Enoch tensed with the strain of not touching back. He swallowed and tried to breathe despite the pounding cold and his mounting arousal.

The Beast pressed so close that Enoch couldn’t see his eyes anymore, and purred in his ear. “Right beside me.”

The attic door slammed open and Enoch jumped, turning to squint at the door. Light from the hall flooded in and the Beast let out a noise of pain, jerking away from Enoch and covering his eyes with his hands.

“Augh! What the–” Mr. Blackwell tried to see through slitted eyes. “Bart, you son of a bitch! Close the fucking door and get out!”

“No,” the old man from the haunted wood scene grunted.

Mr. Blackwell snarled. “I said, see yourself out, Bart. You’re fired.”

Bart only muttered and tightened his grip around the axe handle.

“I apologize for this,” Mr. Blackwell said to Enoch, sounding mortified. “Obviously, we’ll get you another ticket and do another experience for you.”

“Hm,” Enoch said, unsure. Surely this was a trick?

“I don’t know what to say. I’ve never had this happen before.”

Enoch peered at him for a moment or two, but decided that Mr. Blackwell was being sincere. “I appreciate it. Perhaps you can show me the emergency exit? I’d rather not spoil the rest of the atmosphere for myself.”

“Of course. It’s right this way.” Mr. Blackwell led him to a door at the back of the attic, illuminated by the light from the hall. He opened it and held it for Enoch, revealing a well-lit, clean staircase to the second floor. “After you.”

Enoch took a step forward.

Thwack.

Mr. Blackwell let out a harsh gasp.

Enoch turned around with an incredulous smile on his face in time to catch Mr. Blackwell as he fell against his chest. The man clutched at his shirt, and that was awfully nice, but wasn’t this all a little over the top?

“W-What?” Mr. Blackwell mewled. “Bart–”

Bart stood behind him and reached out for the axe imbedded in Mr. Blackwell’s back. He wrenched it back with a jerk, and Mr. Blackwell gave another raking gasp as his body responded to the pull. He clawed at Enoch as Bart put a foot on his back and beat him to the ground so hard he bounced.

The second blow fell, and the axe made a wet, sickening crack as something hot sprayed up at Enoch’s trousers.

Mr. Blackwell screamed. For a terrifying moment, Enoch thought he might actually be witnessing something real. He stared, uncertain, unable to move.

Mr. Blackwell reached out with shaking hands and grabbed his ankles. “S-Stop him. S-Stop him! You c-c-can’t just watch!”

Enoch smiled nervously, uncertain. He looked up at Bart.

Bart looked back at him. He didn’t smile, but he winked one eye. Enoch’s blood froze as Bart picked the axe up for a third blow.

“This isn’t the act!” Mr. Blackwell sobbed.

The axe struck him one last time in the back with a noise Enoch knew he’d never forget. Mr. Blackwell went limp, dropping his grip on Enoch and whimpering as Bart pulled the axe out again.

“Come on,” Bart said to Enoch. He reached for the knob and nonchalantly clicked the lock from the inside. “I’ll show you out.”

Enoch swallowed thickly and followed, even as he stared at Mr. Blackwell, motionless on the floor. Bart pulled the emergency route door wider and let the light flood the room.

In the yellow light of the hall, Enoch could see the red ooze dripping off the edge of the heavy-looking axe, and the dark wetness dampening Mr. Blackwell’s fur coat. His knees trembled a little as he moved to follow Bart.

Mr. Blackwell whined so softly.

“Don’t leave,” Mr. Blackwell gurgled. He reached a shaking hand out towards Enoch as Enoch stepped away. “Please don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me like this. Please–”

“Move,” Bart said to Enoch, not unkindly. He gestured with the axe. “Ride’s over. Come on.”

Enoch let Bart close the door on the attic room and slowly followed him down the steps. Halfway down the flight, he heard a soft knocking on the upstairs door and a voice wetly choking, “Lorna. Lorna! Lorna!”

“He, ah, really gives it his all,” Enoch murmured, trying to dispel the tension.

Bart didn’t answer. Enoch did not find that comforting, but then, Bart was a professional when it came to making making people uncomfortable.

Mr. Blackwell went silent above them. The quiet lanced into Enoch’s soul.

They walked down to the first floor and towards the front foyer. The house was quiet and lit up from the ceiling, allowing plenty of light to be shed on all the details and splendor of the rooms usually submerged in darkness. House in the Wastes really was a labor of love, and a splendid one–but the light did not help to soothe Enoch’s troubled soul. It was strange and terrible to see such a carefully crafted universe dragged into clinical light.

That had been an act, hadn’t it? It had to be an act.

But if Enoch ever wanted to kill someone, witness or not…

“Good night,” Bart said, as he opened the front door for Enoch to leave. No one ever left through the front door.

“Yes, good night,” Enoch said. He fixed a smile on his face and pushed his hands into his pockets. “I don’t suppose I might thank the master of the house for such a virtuoso performance?”

“You’re welcome,” Bart said with a thin little smile.

“Ha ha, yes. I mean, Mr. Blackwell.”

Bart peered at him for a few seconds. “Maybe in a few days. Wouldn’t want to spoil the illusion.”

That axe dripped some very red ooze. Mr. Blackwell was always insistent on keeping a bloodless home.

“I’d really like to see him now,” Enoch said. He made himself laugh, as embarrassed as he wished he could feel. “I have to admit you’ve really given me a fright. It would reassure me.”

“Oh, that’s very flattering,” Bart said flatly. “That might be what he always wanted. Step outside for a minute. I’ll see if he can give you a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” Enoch said, and passed through the doorway. Bart left it standing ajar, which did a lot to bolster Enoch’s courage.

A few minutes passed and the lights in the house went down. It was past midnight now, and the queue of customers was gone, but surely the house wasn’t completely closed just yet. The boy who ran the ticket desk did not appear to be at his post or anywhere nearby, and none of the other actors emerged, but presently Bart came back with no expression shifting his craggy face.

“He’s very busy,” Bart said. “Can’t see you. And we’re closed now.”

“But–”

“Good night,” Bart said, and closed the door in Enoch’s face.

Enoch heard the bolts shoot into place and felt sick to his stomach.

Oh, God. And he’d left the poor man there–

Enoch hammered on the door with his fist and yelled, but no one answered him. He tried to stay calm, reaching for his own cell phone. No one would ever believe him, if he reported that a man had just been killed at a haunted house, but what else could he possibly do? He couldn’t just let this happen!

He stood, gripped with indecision for a few terrible seconds, before he heard a sharp whistle from above. He stumbled off the porch and down the steps, and looked up at the roof of the house.

Mr. Blackwell, antlers and all, was sitting on the windowsill with one leg kicking slowly in the air. He was backlit by the light of the attic and despite having no discernable features, was looking supremely pleased with himself. He gave Enoch a coy little wave, wriggling his long fingers, and Enoch thought he caught sight of Lorna in the room with him.

He almost dropped to his knees with relief.

“That cannot possibly be safe,” he called up, still shaking a little. “What if you were really attacked?”

Mr. Blackwell let out a delighted bark of a noise.

“Don’t judge us on our safety precautions sight unseen,” he called down. “We’re more than adequately set up for an actual incident, I can assure you.”

“You broke your blood rule for me,” Enoch grinned. “I’m flattered.”

Mr. Blackwell shrugged his lissome shoulders and lounged in the window. “Anything for my best customer. Don’t you think Bart makes an excellent murderer? He’s found his niche, at last. I thought I’d never see the day.”

“My compliments to the butcher.”

Mr. Blackwell laughed again and began to draw himself, spiderlike, back into the room. “Don’t come back.”

“You couldn’t keep me away, now,” Enoch replied.

“I mean it. Stay away until next year.”

“Oh, rather pull my heart out, but let me return!”

“Don’t tempt me. I might take you up on it.”

“Thank you. This was horrific.”

Mr. Blackwell actually blew him a kiss. Enoch was rather surprised, but apparently not as surprised as Mr. Blackwell himself. He quickly closed the window and drew the curtains, disappearing again into the house.

Lorna gave Enoch a little wave out of one of the other windows before that one, too, was covered.

Enoch stood in the dark waiting area and grinned to himself a little.

God, but they knew their business.

***

“Beatrice is one of the birds, tonight!” Lorna gushed, and apparently that was sufficient cause to justify dragging Herod out on his only off-night in nine days and installing him by the cider tent at Potter’s Field. He had some suspicions that this was a conspiracy of some description, but to what end he couldn’t possibly say.

He was just hoping that Enoch would be sufficiently busy that Herod’s presence would go unnoticed. The entire problem, of course, was that he didn’t dislike the man. Not at all. But it was one thing, to fondle a man with his implicit permission while playing a role–indeed, it was one thing to go so far as to terrify him with one’s own gruesome murder–but it was quite another to have to face up to the play acting in the broad light of evening.

Maybe he could just dodge attention all evening, have a discreet ride in the hay cart, and go back to his own haunt, where he knew who he was (and who he was was master of his own domain) and more importantly there weren’t any handsome business rivals for him to torment himself with.

Blowing a kiss. He should be whipped.

Hindsight being what it was, Touch Me Thursday was an entirely terrible idea. Perhaps wasn’t too bad in the general way, because he certainly didn’t permit all of his customers to the dubious honor of the attention he bestowed on Enoch, but now that he’d begun it and the money had proved so good, he wasn’t going to be able to stop it. And he was very likely to begin to crave a yearly handful of Mr. Grange, and that would have to go unsatisfied. He couldn’t drag the man up to the attic for at least three years, now. If Herod wanted to preserve any of his dignity, he was going to have to let the others have a whack at him.

But it was a distasteful idea, that of Enoch’s shoulders being seized and stroked by Adelaide’s bony little hands. Or worse, by Bart’s.

It was the kind of thing that chilled a man’s soul.

Herod stood by the cider tent, quietly getting soused before sunset and doing his best chimney impression. As he glanced up again from crushing out his cigarette, he caught sight of Enoch beside him and nearly leapt out of his skin.

Enoch’s eyebrows rose and he unzipped a mouthful of good, white teeth. “Hm. Is the shoe finally on the other foot, as regards giving each other frights, or should you just consider a switch to decaf?”

“If those are the options, I imagine you may think whatever pleases you,” Herod shot back.

“My, my. That is a very enticing invitation,” Enoch murmured low.

Oh, God. He was being teased.

He would not be made ashamed of himself. Not in front of a competitor. No more.

“And how will you take advantage of it?” Herod asked.

“Well, that very much depends on how much the things that it pleases me to think may translate into real substance. Assuming I can bend reality such that it reflects more perfectly my own desired vision…”

Herod stared him down.

“You would come along and help me scare some schoolchildren out of their wits,” Enoch said.

Herod stared him down some more. “What.”

“Yes. Short of approximating in every possible particular those few moments before your employee ‘interrupted’ your performance last week, I think I’d be most pleased by having your assistance this evening during the hayride. It gets a little dull, when I’m all by myself. And you’d add a tasty new dimension to the experience, I’m certain.”

Herod found himself just barely shy of grinning like an infatuated idiot. “Oh. Well, I’m…afraid I don’t have my antlers with me…”

“That’s all right. We can think of something else to do with you. And anyway, we really are still geared toward families, so I don’t see any reason for us to try budge in on your pronounced ability to make people horny.”

Herod hissed a small, embarrassed laugh at the pun, bawdy as it was, and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Well, have you ever done any experiments with the acoustics? That barn is ripe for a hair-raising whisper or two.”

Enoch waved a hand towards the cornfields. “Won’t you step into my office, and we can discuss it all in depth?”

Herod allowed himself to be steered by the hand that ghosted over his lower back. “I didn’t realize you were looking for a collaborator. I’d really thought the young lady…”

“Oh, no, nothing of the kind,” Enoch replied. “No, aside, of course, from my own, I really only have eyes for one monster. And you were very right a few nights ago. I’d love to see you work.”

“Well, let’s make sure you get to see it often,” Herod murmured, and slipped into the corn with his newfound colleague.


	2. Trapped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a meme on tumblr.
> 
>  

“Hm. Trapped in a pitch-dark, faintly cool room with the master of House in the Wastes…this situation feels a little familiar,” Enoch mused, as their chests pressed together and Herod’s heart beat a frantic tarantella against its cage. “Where have I experienced this before?”

“Damn it,” Herod hissed.

This was supposed to be his day off. He shouldn’t even really be here – he’d only come to oversee the delivery of his new obsession.

He’d finally cracked under unbearable temptation and bought himself a used church organ. It was a small thing, but perfect for a residence, and he was madly in love with its exquisite cathedral arches, its slick keys, and its sublime, throaty voice. He’d used to play the organ at the music conservatory in town, until they finally caught him and threw him out. He’d really missed it, and now he had a tender little darling all his own. The sounds he was going to be able to make…

Assuming he ever got out of the closet. (Cute. Hilarious.)

As a boy, one of Herod’s aunts had given him a large coffee table book of the drawings of Charles Addams. His fate had been sealed. Within a week, his mother had indulged a devoted son’s burning desire and had found him a double-wide coffin to use as a bed.

He slept on a queen-size mattress, now, when he bothered to sleep. Even after all these years, he still had the suspicion that the mattress wasn’t quite as comfortable as the plush satin cushions of his boyhood cradle.

The upshot was that Herod was not claustrophobic. Nor was he afraid of being buried alive. Nor of getting his teeth ripped out at the roots, nor of being shoved up a chimney by a gorilla, nor of being burned alive in chains. He had some suspicion that his taste for Pinot Noir may one day lead him to being chained and walled up in a basement, but it would have to be one hell of a vintage to get him down there in the first place.

He didn’t really experience the fears his audience harbored, but he prided himself on understanding them enough to use them. So of course his haunt had a claustrophobia closet, though really it was an armoire.

The walls actually did press in, and if he really wanted to, he could probably use it to kill someone. In a group of four, this was just enough to terrify, never enough to actually damage, and when it came to groups of two, it could be made even tighter.

They had calibrated it for two, in fact, before stepping in to show Enoch just what he could expect if he used the same manufacturer in the house that was to open in Potter’s Field, two years from now.

Herod was beginning to reassess the wisdom of demonstrating that extra bit of mechanical flexibility just now. Enoch Grange was a very large man. Herod was pressed full-length against him.

And the panic he was experiencing had nothing to do with claustrophobia.

“I’m not in the habit of being coy, Mr. Grange,” he said stiffly. “When I said ‘Don’t let the door close,’ I did mean that.”

“I apologize. My hand slipped.”

Fantastic.

Mr. Grange smelled like clean laundry and apple cider. His shirt was very fresh and crisp. This was unforgivable.

Herod squinted in the darkness, grateful for the soft music of Marguerite’s scene covering what felt like a spastic drum major jamming in his chest. “See if you can spot anything that glows in the dark. There is an emergency lever in here.”

Enoch tilted his head a little and Herod paused, breathing the man’s air. “Really?”

“What do you mean, really? Yes. Ordinarily the door only opens from one side, but we’re not simple. There’s an emergency exit for precisely this–”

One of the encroaching walls pressed against his back and held him against Enoch’s front. He swallowed hard.

“–sort of incident,” he winced.

“Fascinating,” Enoch murmured in his ear. Herod really wanted to turn his head and let him breathe that warm breath down his neck.

He did not run that kind of house. He did NOT run that kind of house.

“I commend your forethought. Your dedication to safety is admirable,” Enoch added.

“Yes, I consider it my particular pleasure to avoid getting sued,” Herod replied. “Something I like to do to keep myself entertained on my off-days. Do you see the lever?”

“My eyes are still adjusting,” Enoch replied.

He tilted his head and Herod knew from the way his warm breath suddenly spilled down his collar. He shuddered.

“I know it’s silly to ask, but you’re not scared, are you, Mr. Blackwell? I hate to think of this situation being very dire…”

“I’m not claustrophobic. Only anxious to move on. You can’t see the hydraulics from here and without that detail there’s no point in showing you the interior.”

“And I am excited to see the hydraulics, it’s true. I’m sure it’s quite a rig.”

“Custom-tuned, actually. The room can be made to pulse.” That detail seemed impossibly dirty, just now.

“Oh, my. How thrilling. I knew getting you to show me the rude mechanicals of your haunt would be more pleasure than business.”

Herod didn’t especially consider slow torture to fall into either of those categories. He shifted himself very slightly, trying to see.

“There!” Herod replied. “I see it.”

Enoch tried to twist. “Sorry, where?”

“By your right–no, left calf. Do you see it?”

“Oh, yes. There it is.”

“Can you reach it?”

“No. I’m sorry, but I don’t dare move in such tight quarters. I’m not used to being quite so constrained and I wouldn’t want to bump into you.”

Bullshit.

“Fine,” Herod said. “I’ll do it. Don’t move.”

Enoch stood very still and helpfully drew in his breath as Herod shifted and slid across his front. Their torsos pressed as he got to one knee and reached around Enoch’s leg for the lever, head at his hip. This was a moment he was going to be reencountering in his nightmares, he already knew. He never should’ve blown him that kiss. Totally mortifying.

Herod gripped the shaft of the lever and pulled it.

The door to the next room clicked quietly and Herod smiled. He loved his house. His house was superb.

“After you,” he said from Enoch’s hip.

Enoch reached out and pushed on the door. It clunked quietly. “Hm.”

“You say that very often,” Herod said to Enoch’s pocket.

“I’m justified to do so. I’m afraid it’s stuck.”

“Nonsense.”

Enoch grunted softly. “No, I’m serious. It’s stuck. I believe something is blocking the way.”

“What? There’s nothing in that room. This is the passage from the ghost waltz to…” Herod swallowed.

“Yes, the swamp, I’m aware. Perhaps that explains my surprise at finding the door stuck–”

Gripped with the sudden fear that the walls would close further and trap him on his knees in front of Enoch, Herod writhed up along Enoch’s body until he got back to his feet, breathing heavily for a few seconds.

“Push the door hard,” Herod panted.

Enoch reached and pushed. His muscles strained, probably. Herod wasn’t sure if he was more relieved or devastated not to be able to see them in action.

The door creaked a little and something outside groaned.

“I am not used,” Enoch grunted, and his thigh tensed against Herod’s leg, oh God, “to being unable to move something.”

“Yes, that’s obvious,” Herod sighed. “You can stop. My organ is in the way.”

Enoch dropped his arm. “…an instrument of impressive size, Mr. Blackwell.”

Herod gave him a dirty look he couldn’t see. “Yes, I’m full of surprises once you get me alone. The movers brought it today. They were saying something about the back door when I got your call.”

“Blocking the safety exit,” Enoch concluded.

“If you take this as some kind of absurd opportunity to ding me–”

“For demonstrating sub-standard safety precautions, the very likes of which I brought up as a concern when you got Bart to put an axe in your back–”

“When you did not obey your guide!”

Enoch hummed. “You have me there. Fine. Perhaps you have some suggestions?”

“None. We might’ve been able to move it, maybe, at one point, but I can’t contribute any weight. Our position is too cramped.”

Enoch chuckled low and warm and it vibrated in his chest. Herod had never known what to do with people whose laughs were warm. He always faintly suspected they were up to something, but precisely what that might be, he couldn’t begin to imagine.

“You can just say I’m a big man,” Enoch replied. “I’m perfectly well-aware of it.”

So was he. “My point is–”

“You’re breathing so heavily, Mr. Blackwell,” Enoch interrupted. “Are you sure you aren’t afraid of tight spaces?”

“I am not,” Herod said firmly.

“Are you certain? I know this is a slightly unusual situation. There’s no harm in admitting the truth. You’re not at all large and I imagine it might be a little uncomfortable to be trapped with a man of my size–”

“Assure yourself that fear is not what I experience when I think about your size,” Herod said, “and that is the final word on the subject. We have more…immediate issues to handle.”

Enoch smiled. Herod could hear it. “Don’t you mean–”

“No.”

“Pressing matters?”

Herod beat his fist against the wall several times, making a loud series of thuds.

“I think I sense some hostility,” Enoch said in a wondering tone of voice.

History was full of people who had managed to hold their breath until they died. It was time for Herod to join their ranks.

* * *

If he were dealing with anyone but the foxy-yet-elusive Mr. Blackwell, Enoch would’ve been certain this was a setup. It was a classic maneuver–making seven minutes of heaven out of hell, hmm?–and the circumstances were so convenient and so seemingly innocent that they would be all-too easy to explain away to whoever it would be that eventually “rescued” them.

But one could never be really sure about what Mr. Blackwell was up to. One moment he was faking his own gruesome murder for your amusement, the next he was happily helping you terrorize your customers, and the third he was chain-smoking in an all-but abandoned parking lot and glowering at his shoes.

It was so exciting, to be kept on one’s toes like this, but even ballet dancers eventually had to come down. Enoch had no idea which way was up.

They flirted, yes, certainly, and Enoch felt he could say confidently that his flirtation had been noticed (even if perhaps not positively reciprocated, a suspicion he’d begun to harbor since the evening of their last collaboration). And he’d almost thought that Mr. Blackwell agreeing to give him a lights-on tour of House in the Wastes was a telling display of particular fondness.

And by all other standards, becoming locked in a tight little alcove was the stuff of bawdy fiction from time immemorial.

But not only had Mr. Blackwell seemed wholly oblivious to such notions as were currently running riot in Enoch’s own mind–oh, but he’d felt so good on his knees, bracing himself on Enoch’s thigh, innocent as a dove, breath hot through the fabric of Enoch’s trousers–he’d done all he could to try and get them out. He’d admitted immediately that his ubiquitous cell phone was left in his office. Because he was fairly sure Mr. Blackwell was surgically attached to his device, this had almost made Enoch change his mind about the situation being accidental, but he soon reflected that he, himself, had left his own device in his coat in the car. It was possible.

And far more telling than the cell phone was the way Mr. Blackwell had apologized for the inconvenience–not in any way that might indicate a little fleeting guilt over a sea of satisfaction, and especially not in a way that involved him draping his arms over Enoch’s shoulders and breathily suggesting that they come up with a way to use the time constructively. More’s the pity.

Believing this to be a very real conundrum, then, Enoch set himself to being as good a fellow prisoner as he could possibly be. He did think it was beginning to pay off.

Mr. Blackwell was finally starting to relax and Enoch flattered himself say he was the entity responsible for that change. Oh, he wasn’t quite leaning on Enoch, not yet, but at least he wasn’t humming with tension, anymore. The poor man would probably start twitching for a cigarette soon, though. He smelled faintly of clove smoke and some kind of shampoo, and the body heat between them had long made him far less frigid than Enoch was accustomed to feeling him, considering their nights in the Beast room.

Enoch was telling a long story about a bad customer. It required voices, and ideally gestures, and once it had reduced Miss Clara to shrieks of laughter.

Mr. Blackwell was giggling. Enoch felt a warm flush of achievement. Melting should be imminent, if he was clever and careful.

“And I suppose the short way of putting it is admitting that we lost track of him after that. Mr. Pearson finally found him two days later, having done about $1,600-worth of crop damage, and severely dehydrated. He asked for a refund.”

“Was the chicken still…?”

“Oh, yes.”

Mr. Blackwell snickered. “You’ve just got to love this business. Who could ever go back to an office job?”

“Ah. Is that where you come from, then? Something corporate?”

“No. I was, ah. A musician, before.”

“Really? I might’ve guessed.” Although with that knee-weakening voice, he could've just as easily made a killing as a 1-900 operator, but perhaps that was more of a part-time job.

“Yes. Hence the organ. But I got interested in more of what was going on backstage of the opera–”

“Opera!”

“–and I’d always wanted to move into a different kind of theater, so.” Mr. Blackwell shrugged in the dark.

“And here I thought it had to do with a lifelong desire to make grown men cry.”

“Oh, that’s part of it. But of course I have so many, many ways of doing something that simple…”

His voice held just an edge of purr. Heavenly.

“Go on…”

“When I was young and wild, I wanted to recreate H.H. Holmes’ Murder Castle,” Mr. Blackwell said. “Of course, that’s a simple idea, a child’s notion, but when I was full of dreams, I imagined lime pits, gas rooms, hanging chambers…”

“A ball of human hair under the steps,” Enoch sighed.

“Exactly!” Mr. Blackwell chirped. He sounded delighted. It was bewitching. “A dissection room in the basement, and a room where a man is endlessly burned alive…”

Enoch grinned at the enthusiasm in his voice. “Sounds horrific. And completely different from your own house.”

“Yes, well, I’ve never been moved by blood,” Mr. Blackwell said. His voice dropped into that turpentine-sweet sarcasm register that always made something warm burn low in Enoch’s rib cage. “And I’m wholly original, aren’t I? Why mimic someone else, when I am myself possessed of such a wholly unique artistic vision?”

“Why indeed. It surely keeps the crowds coming. Some people wonder if you have a blood phobia.”

Mr. Blackwell huffed. “You cannot be satisfied, can you?”

“Never. I have big appetites, and I make it a mission to fill them. But what in specific are you thinking of?”

“You want to know what scares me.”

“I do. I’ll tell you mine.”

“I can guess it.”

“Really?” Enoch chirped. “Can you?”

“It’s loss,” Mr. Blackwell said. “It’s all over you. You’re protective, keeping your lady friends on your arms. You’re always surrounded by people, because you like them. And you’re strong, and competent. Used to having your own way, whether through charm or strength. What could be more terrifying that the inevitability and implacable impersonality of loss?”

Enoch felt something cold zing through him. It was almost enough to bring the mood down, but then Mr. Blackwell went on.

“Which is all very abstract. That just means that you have fun in all this guts and gore stuff. Monsters, body horror, lunatics…it’s just the means to the end. Might as well be afraid of being stabbed and go into paroxysms over a butter knife.”

Enoch laughed. “You’re good at this! And here I thought I was inscrutable. I think that’s exactly right.”

Mr. Blackwell hissed, pleased. “Nailed it. If it’s any comfort, you’re the exact kind of person I never quite know how to get.”

“That is a distinct honor. So must I guess your fear? Or will you have mercy on one who is not a student of these matters?”

“Never. If you can’t guess, I won’t tell you.“

Enoch grinned. “Hm. Perhaps large dogs?”

“I actually have one.”

“What kind?”

Mr. Blackwell tensed a little and shifted some. Enoch thoroughly enjoyed it. “It’s not large. A Pomeranian.”

“My, my. Is he named Dracula?”

Mr. Blackwell huffed a laugh against Enoch’s chest. “Nosferatu. Anyway. Dogs leave me cold.”

“Bart.”

“Frigid.”

Enoch hummed a laugh. “You’re not afraid of blood, or sharp objects, even if you don’t use them. Maybe madmen?”

“Chilly.”

“Madness?”

“Better. Lukewarm.”

Ooh. “Interesting. The oil?”

“Warm.”

“Body horror.”

“Warmer.”

“Oh, you must think I’m stupid–it’s the Beast.”

Mr. Blackwell hummed and reminded him just how close they were. “I’ll let you be hot, if you can say why.”

“I’m doomed to be warm, then. Why?”

“You can guess, I know you can,” Mr. Blackwell breathed. He leaned close. “Go on. I bet you know it.”

Enoch’s hands twitched. He’d spent the better part of this half-hour not touching Mr. Blackwell, and he wasn’t sure how much more he could stand. He wet his lips.

“You’re so stubborn,” Enoch said quietly. “Almost morbidly so. You’re…wholly original.”

Mr. Blackwell hissed in the darkness. Enoch almost imagined he could see those white eyes glowing in the dark, but this time they were attached to a warm, lean, relaxed body, one wedged so close again his own that they might as well be grinding with every movement…

“You don’t want to be changed, do you? You are exactly what you are. And nothing scares you as badly as the thought that you might come be–be made to be–anything but that.”

“Yes,” Mr. Blackwell breathed. “Exactly…”

‘Let me kiss you,’ Enoch almost asked, but a voice that wasn’t his cracked over him.

“Herod?”

All of Enoch’s hard-won relaxation in Mr. Blackwell’s body disappeared and was replaced by a kind of livid rigidity that felt like a dry wick an inch from the flame. Mr. Blackwell lurched forward and pressed against Enoch’s chest, leaning towards the back door.

Enoch didn’t sigh, but he did wonder to himself just how much longer he would need to have Mr. Blackwell alone in a dark room to get that softness back. Perhaps he could cut his time down to only a few minutes, if he could only put his hands on Mr. Blackwell’s hips. And chest, and belly. And right up the insides of his long, slender thighs, spreading them slowly. And—

“Lorna?” Mr. Blackwell said. His voice was a squawk. “Lorna! In the claustrophobia boudoir!”

“…you mean armoire?”

Mr. Blackwell’s body lurched away. Enoch heard a quiet thunk. He somehow suspected it was Mr. Blackwell’s head.

“Yesss,” Mr. Blackwell moaned. Enoch listened to it and imagined what might’ve been.

“Oh, no! The organ–yes, hang on.”

Tapping feet raced away from the sliver of open door. Enoch tried to compose himself, for God only knew what his expression showed. The entry door clicked and flew open, and Mr. Blackwell, who had apparently been leaning on the door, reached out and seized Enoch’s shirt and shoulders, gripping him for balance. Mr. Blackwell clung close enough to melt against his skin.

Enoch wrapped his arms around Mr. Blackwell and held him around the waist. To be neighborly.

“Thank you, Lorna,” Mr. Blackwell gasped, his voice rich with sarcasm.

“My pleasure,” Lorna said wryly. She glanced at Enoch and smiled. “Are you all right?”

“Of course. It’s my house,” Mr. Blackwell replied. He slid with flattering slowness away from Enoch and stood on his own feet. “We just need some air.”

“Oh, yes.”

Enoch followed his host out and stretched a little. It really was a marvelous device. He ought to get one for his own project.

Mr. Blackwell dusted himself off and adjusted his clothes. “And just what are you doing here, Lorna? I’m not complaining, clearly, but I thought you were with your aunt.”

“Oh, she’s with Bart,” Lorna smiled. “He’s asked her out for a phosphate.”

“He would.” Mr. Blackwell lifted one dark eyebrow. “And is there a Bathory scene waiting for me in my bathtub?”

Lorna gave him a brilliant smile and scuffed a foot. “That depends on whether you step outside for a cigarette break that lasts, oh, fifteen minutes?”

“Perfect. We’ll do just that. Enoch? I’m sure you could bear a moment on the porch.”

“Oh, but I think I’m rather curious about this–”

“No, you’re not,” Mr. Blackwell said, taking his elbow and pulling him along. “Let’s not embarrass one of your employees. Come on. We’ll look at the swamp.”

Enoch let myself be led. Well, who knew?

He should offer a tour of his own haunt, for symmetry’s sake. Maybe they could kick the ladder of the hayloft over.


	3. Give Me A Listen

“But you see it really works because the farmer – Andreas, I believe – heard footsteps in the attic some days before the attack, but no one bothered to do anything about it.”

“Mm-hm,” Lorna sighed.

“And there’s something absolutely nightmarish about the little girl.”

“Uh-huh…”

“Seven years old. An excellent age.”

“Yeah…?”

“They realized that she didn’t die immediately, because she’d ripped out tufts of her hair as she lay there in the barn, in the straw, with her dead mother and grandparents. Just think of it.”

Beatrice pulled her head out of her pillow and took the cell phone out of Lorna’s limp fingers. "Blackwell.“

“And – oh. I see you have company,” Herod Blackwell sniffed.

“Blackwell,” Beatrice repeated sternly.

“Good evening, Beatrice. How are you and the family?”

“Good MORNING, Blackwell. It is two in the goddamn A.M.”

“Is it? Hmm, I’m not used to this daylight savings time business. I swore it was three.”

Oh, God Christing damn it. “Are you drunk?”

“I don’t get drunk,” Herod said primly. “I relax.”

“Why are you calling us, drunk at two in the morning?”

“I’m working, Beatrice. Lorna and I are working, and I need her to focus, so if you wouldn’t mind passing the phone back…”

“I keep trying to tell Lorna, despite her apparently accurate estimation of your abilities, that you in fact do not need her to regurgitate pre-chewed meals into your mouth,” Beatrice snarled. "Could you do me just a little tiny favor and work on proving me right?“

"I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Go the fuck to bed, Blackwell. Your spoopy Wikipedia horseshit hayride can wait until the morning.”

“‘Spoopy’?” Herod intoned. Beatrice wanted him to teach her how to audibly flick an eyebrow upwards, but not right now. Not. Right. Now.

“Let her have a few of her twelve off-duty hours to herself, before you start yammering on about new attractions. I ask you this out of friendship, and also because I don’t want to have to drive over there and shove your phone down your throat in front of your dog. It’ll traumatize him.”

“I cannot help but feel that you both lack dedication to the artistic process.”

“Go to bed, or go to hell,” Beatrice said. "Just as long as you go.“

"My best love to your mother.”

“She’ll appreciate that, coming from such a dapper old man. Ah-reaver dare-chi.”

She could hear Herod’s delicate shudder. “You two are the reason I smoke.”

“I’ll pass that right along.” Beatrice hung up and turned off the phone, throwing it in the bedside table and flopping back into bed.

Lorna snuffled and wrapped her arms around Beatrice’s waist. She was wearing a pair of Beatrice’s running shorts and Beatrice felt a sudden stab of adoration.

“You’re so beautiful when you’re forceful,” Lorna mumbled.

Beatrice laughed and buried her nose in Lorna’s hair, holding her close. “You need a new job, baby.”

“Sorry. He’s just ridiculous. He can’t help it. He was born ridiculous. It’s genetic.“

"It’s not genetic,” Beatrice grumbled. "It’s cultivated, like a garden. He cultivated a garden of jackassery and now that he’s old enough to be retired, he likes to spend his time puttering around in it.“

Lorna giggled quietly and snuggled herself closer into her girlfriend’s arms.

They were out in seconds.

* * *

 

Herod attempted one more call to Lorna, but Beatrice had become wise in the ways of protecting the sanctity of the girl’s sleep, and he went immediately to Lorna’s almost painfully cheerful voicemail.

Disappointed, he said, "You’re fired,” hung up, and poured another measure of whiskey into his cup of decaf.

Perhaps he was a little drunk. Drat.

This was no damn good. His head was much too full for him to just go to bed now. He had to talk it all out, and he needed an interlocutor. He’d only just gotten out of the habit of talking to himself and he couldn’t go back. It was one thing to talk to yourself. He and himself liked to fight, and the last time they’d had a domestic, the cops had not been terribly understanding.

He could go to House in the Wastes and pound it all out on the organ. It was a good idea. Whenever he went 40 hours without sleep, he often found that most of what he wanted to do was make the walls thunder.

Ah, but driving. And he was soused, pleasantly, warmly soused, and more importantly in a steaming hot bath. He had vanishingly little desire to put on clothing, much less get dressed and wander over to House in the Wastes.

Nosfuratu huffed and rolled over on the bathmat, little feet sticking up into the air. Herod reached down with dripping fingers and tickled his belly.

“Good boy,” he said. And Nosfuratu was a good boy. But he didn’t quite get horror. He had no imagination, and anyway he was too naturally cute to be terrifying. The best they could do was stick a pair of bat wings on him and subject him to an eternity of being crooned over.

Herod plucked his cigarette out of the ash tray.

Bart? Never.

Adelaide! Wait. No. There was that awkward little incident last St. Valentine’s Day. Calling her in the middle of the night to talk out the minute details of the cocktail of horror and general malaise rambling around in his head might give her the wrong idea. And anyway, she didn’t have that little concealed blade of a brain that Lorna had.

He futzed with his phone for a few minutes more, messing about with the dictation function. He couldn’t call the suicide hotline for this, probably. There was no guarantee that they’d listen, and anyway they never have been much good for bouncing grisly ideas off of.

He’d call a 1-900 operator, but not only would that not really get him where he needed to go, he didn’t want to have to explain the charges on the company card to the accountant. "I called a sex line to narrate the details of unsolved murders and uncanny events” did not a comfortable auditing process make.

Didn’t they have a service for people who just wanted to blither?

He scrolled and scrolled through his contacts. It didn’t take long – one sweep of the thumb, really – but it felt productive, and it was nice to have something to do as he smoked his cigarette down to a stump and lit a fresh one.

He worked hard. If he wanted to chain smoke in the bathtub, that was his business.

He scrolled his phone once more and landed.

Oh. No. No, terrible idea. Terrible. He mustn’t.

Herod drank his decaf and smoked, contemplating the name. Beautifully formed name, he thought. Biblically rich. And good bones, when transcribed. Architecturally appealing.

Much the same was true of the owner. In addition to being architecturally exquisite, the owner of the name was probably biblically rich, too, with all his treasure shored up in heaven.

Not like Herod, no. Why, Herod called people at three a.m. You didn’t get into heaven doing that.

He hit the call button, held the phone to his ear, and sucked on his cigarette.

“Mmm,” the man on the other end of the line hummed. Herod pulled the phone away from his ear just to check he had the number right.

Huh. So it was a residential area code.

“This is Enoch Grange,” the man on the other end of the line murmured. "What’s the matter?“

“Good evening, Mr. Grange,” Herod said, feeling rather more nervous about this than he had when he’d begun. "Are you busy?“

Enoch was very quiet for a few thoughtful seconds.

"Not at all, Mr. Blackwell,” he said at last. "Just lying around, actually.“

"Good,” Herod said, relieved. "I’m just having a hot bath, myself.“

"Mmm, really…?”

“Yes. And between the whiskey and the steam, I’m afraid I’m feeling a little uninhibited. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind me phoning you. I really need to talk to you.”

“Oh! Well, I’m happy to be of service. And deeply flattered that I’m the one you call when you feel uninhibited. Please, go on.”

“It’s personal.”

“I won’t be offended. Go on, Mr. Blackwell, please.”

“Do you have strong feelings, or feelings of any kind at all, about the Dyatlov Pass Incident?” Herod asked.

Enoch was quiet once more. Herod sucked in and blew out a stream of smoke, waiting for him.

“I suppose I generally look at the matter as indicative of a sudden, night-born bout of group panic,” he said at last. “A psychological goldmine, I think.”

“Thank you,” Herod sighed, delighted. "That’s exactly my thinking as well.“

"Paradoxically undressing, I think, was one of the chief features of the bodies. There’s something nightmarish in that, isn’t there? Being so exposed, already dying slowly, but still opening yourself up even more, all to make yourself easier prey for winter.”

“Yes! Huddled around that little fire, nearly naked. And of course, there’s the conspiracy element.”

“Oh, yes, I remember. Leave it to the Soviets for those kinds of tasty little details, right? And didn’t somebody have a missing tongue?”

Oh, thank God! He’d found someone who would actually talk a little! Herod could’ve sung.

“Are you imagining a little something along these lines for yourself, pertaining to hellish snowy mountains and the perils of the winter wilds, Mr. Blackwell?” Enoch purred.

Herod grinned and gave his cigarette a sip.

“Now, now,” he sighed, “don’t you dare go sly on me, Mr. Grange. We’re having ourselves a friendly conversation. Aren’t we?”

“Oh, of course. No business, then, just pleasure. Please, tell me a little more of what you’re thinking. You seem to have some strong feelings indeed.”

“I’ve been thinking about footsteps in the snow lately. Bewitching imagery, I think, and between Dyatlov and Hinterkaifeck, I’ve just had the most overwhelming urge to play with it,” Herod started.

He went on talking, tangents growing faster than he was able to chase. It was only when he reached for his cigarette and found it had burnt out on its own that he realized he’d been going on for almost ten minutes straight. That hadn’t happened in a long time.

He paused and lit another cigarette, listening down the line.

Enoch didn’t say a word.

He could hear Enoch breathing slowly and deeply, and Herod listened, wondering if he should just hang up. It wasn’t the first time someone had fallen asleep on him, and it was after three, after all. He should finish the coffee and think about bed pretty soon.

Enoch hummed low in his throat and Herod tilted his head, waiting.

“I think,” Enoch murmured, low and a little husky. Herod’s own breath seemed to come a little quicker and he pressed his lips together. "You should spend some time exploring coffin births.“

Herod stiffened in the bath. His cheeks scorched from a blush that had absolutely nothing to do with either whiskey or hot bathwater.

Oh, God. Coffin births!

He shouldn’t be hearing this. He never should’ve called. Next thing he knew, the man would be on about self-immolation, and then Herod would definitely embarrass himself. There was no way for him to steel himself against that.

"I’ve kept you up much too late,” Herod said quickly. "I apologize.“

"Hmm?” Enoch asked, sounding dreamy. “Oh, no, Mr. Blackwell, not at all. It was so nice to hear from you.”

“I should let you go. Thank you for being a sounding board.”

“It was my pleasure. I do like to watch you work.”

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

Herod hung up the phone and put it firmly on the bathroom floor, huddling back beneath the water and nervously inhaling the rest of his cigarette. He was going to go straight to bed and think no more about this. It had been an accident. Enoch had been half-asleep.

Coffin births! Herod shuddered. God. He was unbelievable, that man. Incorrigible.

It was Herod’s own fault, calling the man up in the depths of night. He shouldn’t be surprised if all he got out of Enoch was sleepy lovers’ talk, misdirected as it had been.

Lorna must never know.


	4. God Rest Ye Scary Gentlemen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A commission for an anonymous patron, who requested a blackout in House in the Wastes.

There was a young woman in Enoch Grange’s group. She’d been here around Halloween and had suffered a paroxysm of tears over Gregory’s fate. 

Herod just had to have her in his attic tonight. She screamed like an angel, and the holiday was wearing on him terribly. A nice shriek from her would keep him warm the next time he found himself in a department store.

Outside, a storm was raging. Herod stood in his attic and listened to the rain, waiting.

Downstairs, Jimmy roared.

Herod smiled and stretched his freezing fingers.

The door of the attic opened; closed.

Herod reached out to touch the girl’s neck and found himself stroking a warm chest, instead. 

“Good evening,” Enoch Grange said.

Herod snatched his hand back and balled it into a fist. RIP, Jimmy Brown.

“I hope you won’t take this out on the young man downstairs,” Enoch said. “I’m afraid I insisted.”

It would be an abuse of the contract to smack him, wouldn’t it?

Herod clenched his jaw. Fine. Fine, it was all fine. He was a professional. He could handle this. At least it was dark.

He snapped a loop of his chains around Enoch’s neck and pulled, humming The Coventry Carol. Enoch grunted as Herod tugged him along. 

“Oh! The Krampus, of course. Very seasonally-appropriate, Mr. Blackwell. But your performance is only the first reason I’m here. I do have an ulterior motive for storming your attic.”

Herod had a phone! If he wanted to talk – and it didn’t appear he was willing to stop talking any time soon – why, why would Enoch not just put in a call? Did he find it so very necessary to force Herod to self-distract?

“His men of might, in his own sight, all young children to slay,” Herod breathed.

“Beautiful tune. You never hear it as often as you should – ah, but you’re trying to distract me. I’m sorry, Mr. Blackwell, but I can’t let you work your wiles on me tonight. We’ve got grave matters to discuss.”

Herod snapped the chain a little more taut.

“About that conversation we had a few weeks ago,” Enoch said, lowering his voice. “You want to get into bed with me, don’t you?”

Herod nearly leapt out of his skin. Enoch’s chest bumped against him and he stumbled back a step.

“What?” Herod bleated.

“That call was your little way of testing the waters, wasn’t it? To see if I had thought of it, too.”

Herod’s jaw worked up and down. He thought he heard a sharp snap. Was he having an aneurysm?

Enoch took another step closer. Herod’s fingers twitched and he tensed, not sure if he wanted to climb the walls or just fall over. This was why you didn’t call your business rivals while drunk! This was why it was bad business practice! You gave the everything away!

“And I have been thinking about it. Constantly,” Enoch murmured. “So why don’t you come down to Pottsfield and visit the historical society?”

Herod goggled. “I – buh – what?”

“I’m the curator, you know. I can show you some things you may find inspiring. Most fields were used as graveyards at some point, you know. Every year, the corn wraps its roots around three-hundred-year-old ribcages.”

Herod’s brain clicked through several gears and managed to turn the universe right way up once more. Euphemisms! This was business!

He stood up a little straighter, rediscovering his lungs and realizing he could use them to breathe. 

“You don’t say?” Herod sighed.

“Mm-hm.” He could hear Enoch smiling in the dark. “With that kind of history lying around, you can imagine why I would want a man of your talents to work as a consultant on another, perhaps less family-friendly haunt.”

Herod preened quietly to himself. “Well, if you really want me, then we’re going to have to – ”

A voice piped up from behind the attic door. Herod stiffened.

“Herod? Herod, my dear, are you in there?”

“What is it, Adelaide,” he snarled. He heard the door open and felt a stinging rebuke ignite on his tongue, but no light poured in to blind him. 

“The power’s gone out in the whole house, dear,” Adelaide said. Herod’s brain clicked through another dozen gears and he pulled off his horns and chained shackles. “What should we do?”

“Oh, my,” Enoch commented. He certainly did pack a wealth of suggestion into two syllables.

Herod glowered in his general direction, not that he could tell, and wriggled out of his coat. Even without the air running, the cold hit him like a hammer.

“Get Bart and Wirt to handle the customers,” Herod instructed Adelaide. "We need half an hour. Phone this in for me. I’m going to go start the generator.“

"Do you need help?” Enoch offered. 

“No,” Herod replied. "But please stay put. This house can be…treacherous.“

Herod heard Enoch laugh and found himself smiling despite his best intentions. "How many years have you been waiting to use that?”

Herod found the hallway door and slipped out, racing down the steps to find the back porch. Visibility was something like two feet.

Fine.

In moments, the generator was roaring and the lights clicked and flickered in the house. Herod legged it back across the yard and stood under the eaves, soaked and bellowing.

“Wirt! Bart! Check the house and reset for opening. James, Lillian, mollify the guests – anything but a refund. Lorna, get your aunt to give me a status report. And a towel.”

He stood outside, dripping and listening to his employees scurrying around, and frowned when Enoch appeared to the doorway. 

The man was wearing a Santa hat. As the duly-appointed municipal Krampus, Herod felt he must take this as an insult.

“‘Stay put’ can be a tough concept to grasp, but I’m sure you’ll get it, if you just have a little more practice.” His voice came out more quivery than snappish. Being soaked to the bone and shaking like a wet kitten might be taking something away from the desired effect. At least he still had his contacts in.

"Lorna pressed me into service,” Enoch replied. He held out a towel and a pack of cigarettes.

This was a good peace offering, and it was made better when Enoch offered him a light. Herod took him up on it, after a few false starts. He held the smoke for a moment, waiting for the nicotine to hit, and sighed out his smoke. 

That was a lot better.

“You were saying something about, ah…” Herod waved the cigarette around.

Enoch smiled, showing his teeth. 

Berenice, Herod thought, rubbing his tongue against the edges of his own teeth. Obsession and mortality. Grave robbing. Pretty pearls. The skeleton revealing itself in a coy peep. What was a broad grin, after all, but a flash of inviting nakedness? And in the mouth, the most sensitive, sensual part of the head. The most bloody, too.

Oh, stop. He didn’t run that kind of house.

“That’s right. Can I tempt you down to go over some books and talk about a haunt?”

“Well, I’m pretty hard to tempt,” Herod replied.

“I’m perfectly willing to take up the challenge, Mr. Blackwell. What do you say?”

Herod sucked on his cigarette. He knew he was going to regret this. The only question was, when?

“By all means,” Herod agreed. "Let’s go to bed.“

Yeah. That didn’t take long.


	5. Eat Your Heart Out

Herod was writing something for a podcast and wasn’t to be disturbed. That was all very cute, but Lorna hadn’t gotten where she was today by needing a second participant for a weekly meeting, and anyway having such an easily pickable office door lock was something of an invitation all on its own.

She stepped into the office and left the door open behind her.

“Mr. Grange is back,” she reported, looking over the RIP list.

“Surprise, surprise,” Herod murmured. The much-abused keyboard never paused in its hammering rataplan. Lorna took a seat.

“Signed up for Thursday,” she added.

“Of course,” Herod drawled, cocking the latter word in his throat like a curse. “You take him.”

“Actually, that’s the thing. He asked me to,” Lorna said.

The keyboard stopped rattling for a precious, profound moment. Lorna closed her eyes and basked in the solemn stillness.

She opened them again when she heard him peck out three thoughtful keys, a hesitating spacebar, and then the rest of the sentence in an unstoppable clatter that sounded much like a skeleton falling down a flight of stairs.

“Good,” Herod said in a tone of some satisfaction. “Perfect. Thursday, you say?”

“That’s right.”

“Best of luck, I’m sure. What else?”

* * *

 

“Well, well,” Lorna said two weeks later. “Guess who’s coming on Thursday?”

“I do not need to guess,” Herod mumbled. “Which shift?”

“Last one.”

“That will do. I have a new project I can give a little polish and – “

“Actually,” Lorna said. “He’s asked to see Auntie Adelaide.”

Herod turned to look straight at Lorna. His eyebrows drew together. “Your Auntie Adelaide?”

Lorna gave him to kind of look that question merited.

“Well,” Herod said. He drummed his fingers on the desk. “Of course he should see her. It’s taken him long enough. Just let Jimmy know.”

“Will do.”

“How is her act?”

“It’s fine. As fine as usual. She’s solid.”

“Good. What did he think of you?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Good. Nor should you. People are going to talk about us but the last thing we want to do is give them the impression that we recognize their feedback. They’ll never stop feeding back, if we do that.”

“Right.”

Herod rolled his tongue around in his mouth for a second before picking up his cup of coffee. “Good.”

Lorna warred mightily not to smile. “Anything else?”

* * *

 

“Again?” Herod asked.

“Yep.”

“Fine. Last shift?”

“Yep.”

“Fine. Make sure Jimmy knows to send him to me.”

“Actually–”

Herod looked up at her with hard eyes. “No.”

“I haven’t even – “

“I’m saying no. And you know, we do not even take special requests from customers, anyway.”

“Uh, abundant precedent has proven that we do, in fact, take special requests,” Lorna replied.

“I won’t send him to Bart.”

“That’s fine. He asked to see me again.”

Silence. Lorna tried to catch his eye, but Herod was staring at the door. He clenched his teeth and the muscle that stretched between his jaws jumped.

He turned his attention back to the yellow legal pad on his desk.

“Next week is the week of the 7th, isn’t it?” he said at last.

“Yes.”

“Right.”

“And then the 14th right after,” Lorna said, feeling like she needed to fill the space. “We’re ready for that weekend.”

“Good.”

“Anything else?”

“I wrote a new script for the tour,” Herod replied. “It’s on the printer. Look it over and have Wirt practice it.”

“Will do.”

* * *

 

Downstairs, Lorna was getting a handful of Mr. Grange.

Herod cracked his cold knuckles and stretched his fingers. Right this second, she had a handful of him. So what? So Enoch didn’t care to see him try any more permutations on the theme. So Herod had had almost five months to come up with something better than being brutally murdered but hadn’t managed to stick a dismount since.

There were other competitors in the world. Other people who would come up into this attic and let Herod work on them.

Herod drew his victim in, all freezing hands on lukewarm skin and murmured lines he could’ve recited backwards, this time to ears that probably couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of their own blood. Herod skittered his fingers down the calf and hanged his victim, dropping him through the floor and listening long enough to hear the terrified panting.

The same act. Over. And over. And over again.

* * *

 

“Okay, so,” Lorna said. “RIP list for the weekend…”

Herod looked up from his work and sat completely back from his desk. Lorna almost choked.

“Anyone we know?” Herod asked.

“Not this time, no,” Lorna said, staring. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Sunday is the 14th, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Lorna said.

“And we’ve got a full house on Sunday?”

“That’s right.”

“But no one we know on the list? No established repeaters?”

“No.”

Herod picked up a pen and began twiddling it between his fingers. He nodded to the hallway. “Close the door.”

Lorna closed it and locked it for good measure. She put down her printouts and sat down in the uncomfortable chair on the other side of Herod’s desk.

“I don’t need to tell you this doesn’t leave this room,” Herod said. “But I will anyway.”

“Okay.”

“For the next fifteen minutes, you’re fired,” Herod said. “So don’t talk to me as an employee.”

“Herod,” Lorna said, “spit it out.”

Something that could’ve been mistaken for a smile on anyone else snapped at one corner of Herod’s mouth, but it disappeared immediately. “My act is going stale. I need some help improving it.”

Lorna made a rude noise with her mouth and cringed her eyes.

“That is not help,” Herod replied. He twiddled the pen harder.

“You’ve reinvented your act some fifteen times this season alone,” Lorna said. “You’ve restructured the whole mythology thrice. You’ve bought an organ, made up two new characters, introduced six new auditory clashes, added an entirely new dimension of interaction to the house, begun piloting a lights-on tour, a live show, a podcast…!”

“The act is tired,” Herod growled. “I am tired and it’s affecting the performance. It’s trite.”

“No! Herod, for God’s sake. Your act is not trite! In fact, it’s racing to keep up with itself!”

Herod slammed the pen down and it burst like a big inky berry. Lorna jumped in her seat and Herod pointed dripping fingers at her, his eyes ablaze.

“That’s the problem!” Herod thundered.

“Herod–”

“What does it matter how I remake it if none of the performances are any damned good? Who cares how much new material the house has, if it’s all–” Herod’s hands curled and shook, splattering ink on the desk, and his expression grew agonized. “Just garbage?!”

“Herod, it’s not garbage,” Lorna replied. Herod shoved his glasses out of the way and began to rub hard at his eyes with his clean hand. “Just think about this for a second! Touch Me Thursday is genius. We’ve made more profit this season than we’ve ever made before. We’ve been highlighted on three prominent blogs, and they all say we’re brilliant! The live show is going to be perfect for our skill set, and the lights-on tour is going to bring in the weenies like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I refuse to sit still for a pep talk that involves the word ‘weenie,’” Herod hissed.

Lorna crossed her arms. “Too damn bad. I’m still fired and I can say what I want. Now, what’s actually bothering you?”

“My act,” Herod snarled.

“Your act is fine,” Lorna said. “It’s the scariest thing in the house.”

“It was.” He dropped his arms and let them hang limp. His shoulders fell and dangled uncertainly from his neck, more tense down than they were when they were up.

Oh, Lorna thought. “Herod, it’s still–”

“It’s been five months,” Herod said. His voice was soft and he was staring at his ink-smeared hand like he didn’t recognize it. Lorna got up from her seat and searched the file cabinets until she found a forgotten box of tissues.

“Hmm?” she asked, handing him a fistful of Kleenex. Herod nodded and began wiping his hand.

“It’s been five months since the last genuine scare,” he breathed. “I had him. I had him right where I wanted him. He was even about to call the police. You know what that feels like. And he’s a connoisseur. An epicure. A competitor! I beat him and I had him in the palm of my hand!”

Lorna sat back down and crossed her legs.

“But he kept coming back. I couldn’t repeat something even remotely similar to the axe. Everything I’ve done since then is just…” Herod scowled at his wad of tissues. “Treading water! If that! I haven’t come up with anything even close to…”

“An axe in your back.”

“Yes.”

“Well, once you break the fourth wall like that, it’s pretty hard to go back,” Lorna admitted. “But you did get him.”

“I got him once,” Herod said, holding up a finger. “And whether or not that was my very best, it’s the best he’s ever seen. And he’s had five months of steadily declining experience to realize that in very, very brilliant color. I’ve been humiliating myself for five months.”

Lorna heaved a sigh. “And now?”

“And now he’s seeing the rest of the house. As of course he should,” Herod mumbled. “The rest of the house is there for a reason. It’s meant to be seen.”

“But…?”

Herod’s mouth twisted.

“But my act, out of all the acts in the house, is stale,” he breathed. “It’s not worth being seen anymore. No matter what I do to reanimate it, it’s still a corpse.”

Lorna frowned but didn’t try to say anything. Poor simpleton lived to impress. There was nothing she could do that would please him, if he’d made up his mind over some imagined inferiority.

“I think you need a vacation,” she said, not for the first time.

“Now is not the time, Lorna,” Herod groused. “Don’t kick me while I’m down.”

“I mean it. You need a vacation. Something that isn’t related to screams of terror at all.”

“How is that restful?”

“And not a staycation. An actual, factual, get-out-of-the-state-and-go-away vacation. Otherwise you’ll just have a long weekend in bed and you won’t even sleep. You’ll just stay there and grind your teeth. You know you will.”

Herod snorted. She supposed that was as close to a laugh as she was going to get today. "I can only assume you have some suggestions.“

"Aruba,” she said, conveying every bit of starry-eyed sarcasm she could. "Warm beaches, hot sun, cold drinks with little umbrellas in them. You could get a tan. The fluid in your eyeballs could finally thaw.“

Herod scoffed and sat back in his chair, wadding up the inky tissues and beaming them into a bin. "I’m only saying this one more time: the ophthalmologist could not prove that there was any connection between that and the need for glasses.”

"Sometimes you have to shake icicles off your contact lenses.”

“It’s a sign of good New England work ethic.”

“Take a break,” Lorna said. “Do something else for a while.”

“You say that like there is anything else to do.”

Lorna heaved a sigh.

Herod leaned forward in his chair and reached for his keyboard again. He locked his computer. “All right. You’re hired. Get out of my office.”

Lorna picked up her printouts again. “Beatrice wants to talk to you about live show stuff, when you get a minute.”

“Have her come meet me in the mill room,” Herod said, standing up. “I’m going to do a few repairs.”

Lorna saw herself out and headed down the hall. She could just smack Enoch Grange in his handsome, personable face. What on earth was he thinking? Taking advantage of Herod’s work addiction was a fantastic ploy. It was such an easy vulnerability to use and certainly the fastest way to get Herod to show off his best qualities and his passionate nature. Herod would have been eating out of his hand.

Lorna would’ve been pleased to think that he’d been exploiting that weakness.

But not exploiting Herod’s work addiction? How could he!

* * *

 

Herod had never been to a fun run before. God willing, he would never have to go again. Pottsfield had maybe a thousand people living in it but he swore there were close to a billion happy, chattering bodies wandering around him now. Runners got abundantly kissed on their cheeks as they stood in tight pants and sweaty shirts and mingled with hot chocolate-toting spectators in puffy coats and squiggly heart-encrusted deely boppers.

He didn’t like this hell. He wanted to go back to his own hell, where he had a chair and a door with a bad but functional lock.

He wanted a cigarette. He wanted six cigarettes. He gave a Thanks for Not Smoking! sign a hurt look.

People were talking and laughing everywhere he looked. He had the strange feeling that everyone around him knew exactly what he was here for. This was a particularly unsettling sensation because he wasn’t sure he knew exactly what he was here for.

He was in the neighborhood, that was all. Business.

He watched the race in between watching his shoes and wondering what it must be like to actually be axe murdered. Lucky bastards probably didn’t have to tumble out to the dessicated cornfields on Valentine’s Day for business reasons.

Must. Be. Nice.

“Would you like a carnation, dear?” a voice said nearby. Herod tilted his head very slightly to allow himself a bird-like peer out.

A smiling older woman held out a pink carnation to him. She had her arm wrapped around a big bundle of the things and seemed to be busily employed in passing them out.

Was pink the one for disappointment and rejection? Or was that white? Pink wasn’t as good as red, that was sure. Or was pink the one you sent for hospitals?

He didn’t suppose they’d have green carnations, not that he’d have cause to advertise.

“No, thank you,” he muttered.

“Oh, take it, dearheart, we’ve got plenty,” the woman said. She put it in his hand. “Give it to your runner! That’s the spirit of the holiday, you know.”

“I’m not here for–”

“Mavis?” another voice away in the crowd shouted. The woman gave him a harried look and propped up the bundle of other carnations on her hip.

“Gotta go!” she laughed. “Happy Valentine’s Day, dear!”

Herod tightened his lips and glowered at the happy little pink blossom, before reaching out and beginning to rip off its petals. Picking away at it, he glanced up at the finish line and watched a figure he recognized pass the checkered path.

Permitting the carnation a moment’s respite from its torture, Herod shifted and leaned and wove his way through the crowd, simultaneously trying to shove his way to prominence and avoid all attention whatsoever. Enoch was still breathing heavily. He was wearing shorts and smiling. He was talking to some people Herod didn’t recognize.

One of the women laughed and kissed him on his cheek. Enoch smiled at her and held her hand in both of his.

Herod performed a very awkward sidle over. Intellectually, he knew that nonchalance wasn’t possible. He wasn’t doing himself any favors by pretending to be anything other than precisely where he was, but he couldn’t make himself just storm up and talk.

But. Adelaide. On a Thursday! And Lorna, twice over. Little creeping tiny hands running down arms and the backs of necks, and solicited, too, for precisely that purpose!

The palms of Herod’s own hands itched and he scowled to himself. He flicked his fingers and snapped off the bottom of the carnation stem.

He was such a sucker. He wished he could just look at the numbers, like Lorna did, and declare the whole thing a success.

Enoch began to walk away with his little crowd.

“Wait!” Herod said, and as soon his voice met the air he cast about for a vehicle to throw himself under.

Enoch glanced back, his face a picture of surprise, and Herod winced a little. That impossible smile broke over his mouth in another heartbeat, and he turned to his little cadre to say something.

Herod looked down at his carnation and meticulously began parting and peeling the stem.

“Mr. Blackwell! What a wonderful surprise,” Enoch said, approaching him. Herod could almost feel the warmth pouring off of him. Of course a man like him wasn’t even remotely cold, and particularly not when his blood was still coursing hot and fast through his veins. Enoch smelled like clean sweat and fresh laundry.

Herod set himself to mindlessly shredding away the petals of his carnation and looked up.

“Yes. Excuse the ambush.”

“It’s a pleasure to see you. What brings you out this way, so close to a holiday?” Enoch asked. “I would’ve thought you were hip-deep in screaming victims.”

“Tonight,” Herod said. “Full house, actually.”

“Yes, I know. I picked a bad time to pick up my dry cleaning and before I knew it you were sold out.”

Herod swallowed. “Lorna has a complimentary ticket waiting at the front desk for you. She thinks you’ve earned it, after being such a loyal customer.”

“Oh, that’s so–”

“Just one ticket, though,” Herod said. “Busy night.”

“One would be all I need. But I’m afraid I’ll be busy and can’t attend.”

“No, obviously. Obviously. No one actually goes to a haunted house on Valentine’s Day if they have another option,” Herod blithered. “But try explaining that to Lorna. Anyway, the ticket’s just… there. Perhaps we’ll give it to an orphan or something.”

“I’ve been asked to babysit, you see,” Enoch said. His eyes were amused above his wry smile.

“Oh, God,” Herod said, appalled and instantly sympathetic. “I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”

Enoch let out one of his warm, indulgent laughs. Herod twisted the carnation stem savagely.

“Anyway. The ticket isn’t why I came,” Herod said.

“I almost hope you came to see me, as a matter of fact.”

“Yes. Just to say that I don’t–” Herod stopped himself and started again, slower but picking up speed. “I don’t think it makes sense for us to be competitors. Not least of all because we aren’t really in competition, at the moment. I’m visibly killing myself trying to come up with something interesting for you when you don’t seem to feel the same pressure.”

The humor faded out of Enoch’s expression and he gave Herod a look from those big eyes that made him want to sink beneath the roots of the nearby trees.

“Oh, Mr. Blackwell,” Enoch murmured. His brow was furrowed with concern almost too pretty to be true. “That was never my intention.”

“Yes. No. Obviously,” Herod said, sarcasm bitter on his tongue.

“If there’s anything I can –”

“It doesn’t behoove me to be in competition with you. I’d prefer it if you would be my partner, instead.”

Enoch stared at him.

“You’re…really onto something with that corn-roots-in-rib-cages bit,” Herod said. “And if I’m going to have this Choosy Moms thing hanging over my head for the rest of my career, I would rather split the burden with someone who not only deserves it but who can help me turn someone else’s brain inside out and shred it.”

Enoch cleared his throat. “You really think you need my help for that? You’re the one I think of as being scary. Far and away the most terrifying thing in your own house, or in any other.”

Heat bloomed up Herod’s neck and into his cheeks. He ripped the carnation apart a little more violently. God damn FUCKING Valentine’s Day. Any other day of the year and he might’ve known how to comport himself.

“Take some days to think about it,” Herod said. “I realize that you were only thinking along the lines of consulting, but I think genuine collaboration would benefit us both. I can’t keep doing…what I’m doing now, and you mentioned wanting to branch out, so. It’s. Well…”

Herod swiped a hand through the air, dismissing the rest of the aborted sentence. A few carnation tatters went flying.

“Yes,” Enoch said. He was grinning. “That sounds perfect.”

“Take some days to think about it,” Herod repeated. “It’s…a complicated issue.”

“Come have some breakfast,” Enoch said, gesturing towards Main Street. “You look like you could use a cup of coffee.”

“I don’t–”

“I insist.”

“Do they have a smoking section?” Herod asked. The carnation just wasn’t going to last and when it was ruined he was going to have to find something else to do with his hands.

“Maybe they’ll give us enough menus that we can build one,” Enoch smiled.

“I really can’t stay,” Herod said, ripping away at the carnation. “It’s going to be a big night. Lots of lonely people willing to pay for a reason to scream.”

Enoch reached out towards him. Herod tensed like a startled deer, but all Enoch did was carefully pluck one of the few remaining petals off of the carnation.

Herod glanced up at him and met his eyes.

“What would one little cup of coffee hurt? I think you need it,” Enoch smiled. “And so do I, as a matter of fact. This race started at seven and I didn’t get so much as a glass of water before I was out the door.”

“Oh,” Herod said.

“And I’d like to catch up. It’s been almost a month since we saw each other.”

“Hm, has it?” Herod mumbled.

“We can toast a partnership,” Enoch said. He reached around Herod and put a hand on his back, pushing him gently along. Herod’s heretofore stupefied legs recovered their purpose and swung out to move him forward before he pitched over and ate the unforgiving earth. He crushed the rest of the carnation into his pocket. “And I’ve been dying to talk to you about Miss Adelaide and Miss Lorna’s acts. I certainly don’t mean to talk out of turn, but I do have just a little constructive criticism.”

“Thank goodness I brought my notepad,” Herod drawled, as they crossed the frosty grass towards the street. “It will ruin my digestion if we talk about my house right now. Do you suppose we could stretch ourselves to keeping things neutral long enough to get the lawyers involved?”

“Mm, a point well-made,” Enoch murmured. “Business really needn’t feature at all, if we’re creative. I’m sure we can get inventive enough to be exciting without it….”

Herod managed not to choke to death on his own tongue, which was a victory, and Enoch managed to distract him long enough to buy him a slice of flourless chocolate cake at a remarkably good café.

Horrible, deceitful Valentine’s Day. He was glad to go back to work, really and truly glad. At least it wasn’t babysitting. Poor Mr. Grange was suffering far worse than Herod, at the moment.

He priced tickets to Aruba after the last customer left. Couldn’t hurt to look.


	6. Demolicious

"I have a few things to wrap up here," Enoch said, "and then I'll be right over."

"Oh, take your time," Mr. Blackwell drawled. "Things are only just starting to move, now that Bart's deigned to grace us with his presence."

Enoch smirked a little to himself and sat back in his office chair. It could be hard to tell when Mr. Blackwell was being earnest in his theatrical disdain for the man who appeared to be one of his most loyal employees, but Enoch was pretty certain that that was almost a backhanded compliment, by their standards.

"Great. Can I bring anything?"

"Hot coffee," Mr. Blackwell said.

It was 85 degrees out and not yet ten a.m. Enoch lifted his eyebrows.

"You're sure?"

"Well, a pumpkin spice latte, for preference," Mr. Blackwell said. "But if they don't have it, hot black coffee is what I'll need."

"I'll see what I can do."

Enoch guessed something iced would suit Lorna and Bart. It had taken some almighty flirting to get a pumpkin spice latte in May, but two hours later he parked his car on Third Street and emerged triumphant.

Once, the house on Third Street had been a splendid Second Empire home tucked on the very outskirts of the fashionable main drag. Although it had fallen into bleak disrepair it had still been an expensive purchase, but the town was very nearly equidistant from Potter's Field and The House in the Wastes. Besides, this town had a thriving tourist business of its own.

Mr. Blackwell had been extremely insistent, back when they were looking. "This is the best one we'll get."

"Mm, but it'll want so much work. And contractors certainly are as reliable as they are cheap," Enoch had mused.

"If you think you're going to get away with doing any of this cheaply," Mr. Blackwell had replied, "I think you'd be wise to find a different business partner."

In truth it had all been Devil's Advocate stuff. Enoch had been charmed from the decorative ironwork down, and all it had taken to seal the deal was Mr. Blackwell's enthusiastic approval. Economy might well be a virtue, but so was a ready-made customer base and a beautiful set of bones.

(The house was nice, too.)

Lorna looked up from her phone and smiled at him from her seat on the steps. “Hello, Mr. Barnes."

"Hello," Enoch said, offering her a drink. "I come bearing gifts."

Lorna's eyes widened and fixated on the iced coffee.

"You're the best person ever," she breathed. "Hire me?"

Enoch smiled at her and glanced through the doorway at the sound of a titanic bang. "Demolition?"

"Oh yes," Lorna nodded, slurping on the drink. "If there's a cup of hot coffee in that assortment, you'll be the most popular man on earth."

"There might be. I'm afraid I didn't think of the contractor."

"I wouldn't worry about that. Grab a mask before you go in -- we most of the really gross stuff out, but that just means we're messing with the dust, now."

Enoch slipped one of the little particulate respirators over his mouth and nose and ducked carefully into the gloom of the house. Bart, looking a little damp and tired, was crowbarring up old, nasty carpet. He gave Enoch an acknowledging nod and seemed surprised by the offer of coffee. He emitted a gruff grunt of thanks.

"Is the master of the house in?" Enoch asked.

Bart gestured with his thumb. "Follow the noise."

Curious, Enoch pursued the sound of breaking drywall and quiet grunting to the kitchen. He probably shouldn't be too surprised; Mr. Blackwell was certain to be a supreme perfectionist about the construction of a new house. No wonder that he'd want to babysit unfamiliar workers.

Enoch stepped into the doorway and stopped in his tracks. Mr. Blackwell was alone.

Dust clung to Mr. Blackwell’s exposed arms and to the little hint of chest hair revealed by his neckline. His dark brows were furrowed with effort and and the grey hair at his temples had gone dark with sweat. He stood with his long legs spread and braced against the floor, giving his hips a little bit of a twist so the the lean, hard muscles of his tattooed arms could carry through and slam a sledgehammer into a stretch of drywall. The hammer made a hole with a satisfying _snap_ and with a low grunt Mr. Blackwell repeated the motion, carving out a chunk of loosened material. He put the hammer down and reached with gloved hands into the gaps to rip the drywall out with a grinding, crackling twist.

He tossed the chunk behind him and picked up the hammer again, propping it on his shoulder and heaving a few deep, even breaths. He’d been at this for a while, as the exposed beams of the room attested, but he hadn’t even lost his breath. Just how fit was he?

Helpless, Enoch stared. He’d never had the least idea -- and why should he? Mr. Blackwell was so slender, even fragile-looking, and always so incredibly buttoned-up. Enoch had never seen him in anything less than a turtleneck sweater, and now he was working in… God, it must be a black undershirt, because there was no way something so indecent could be considered outerwear. He was a hard, wiry whip of a man, tightly-built and lithe as a jungle cat. And oh, that tool-belt was slung awfully low on his hips, and he was wearing jeans, good Lord, and wearing them so very well indeed.

Mr. Blackwell glanced toward the doorway and did a double-take. Shifting his weight a little, he shrugged the sledgehammer off his shoulder. He leaned over to set it down and glanced up at Enoch.

“Out back,” Mr. Blackwell ordered. Enoch nodded and, after a few stupefied moments, managed to get his legs to move. Mr. Blackwell followed him out to the back porch and heaved a sigh.

“The open windows don’t do enough,” he muttered.

“I hadn’t expected you to be doing so much of the work yourself,” Enoch blurted.

Mr. Blackwell lifted an eyebrow and pulled off his particulate respirator. “Didn’t you? Well, it doesn’t make sense to hire someone when I can do it. This is my version of exercising economy.”

“Clearly,” Enoch agreed.  He pulled off his mask.

“I’m an architect _and_ a carpenter,” Mr. Blackwell said, a little defensive. “And a good one. I built everything in The House in the Wastes. And I do just about all the repairs.”

Enoch goggled. “Really? All of it? Even the mill? But you must be…”

He stopped talking. Mr. Blackwell glowered at him. A drop of sweat spilled from the hollow of Mr. Blackwell’s throat and cut a clear line of pale skin before it disappeared beneath his neckline. That shirt was awfully tight. Enoch wanted to get a better look at those tattoos.

“Finish the sentence,” Mr. Blackwell grumbled.

‘Ninety-eight pounds,’ he didn’t say. Enoch swallowed discreetly and made himself look up at Mr. Blackwell’s pale, searing eyes.

“Thirty-seven?” he offered in an artificially sweet voice.

Mr. Blackwell huffed a sardonic, full-body breath and pulled off his eyeglasses. He used the hem of his shirt to wipe his glasses and then his forehead. Enoch didn’t stare.

He regretted it instantly but Mr. Blackwell’s abdomen was covered again by the time he tried to look.

“Forty-six,” Mr. Blackwell replied. “How very, very smooth, Mr. Grange.”

Damn it. Enoch took a minute to deliberately not say something very stupid.

“It’s warm in there.” That was still stupid, but a lot less stupid than some of the other things that popped into his head.

“Disgusting work,” Mr. Blackwell remarked. “I envy you getting to spend your morning behind your desk.”

“Sorry to leave you in the lurch.”

“Yes, you’re absolutely oozing contrition,” Mr. Blackwell scoffed. He rolled his neck. It cracked a little and he fished a pack of cigarettes out of the back pocket of his jeans. “But we’ve gotten rid of all the dead rats, or so we think.”

“Was Bart the point man for that?” Enoch asked. Mr. Blackwell offered him a smoke. “Ah, no, thank you.”

Mr. Blackwell lit the cigarette and gestured at the tree in the backyard. A little black puff was tied up to the tree. Enoch watched as it wiggled its four smaller black puffs in the air.

“Nosfuratu was a ratter in his former life,” Mr. Blackwell replied. “That’s our point man.”

Enoch made a strangled giggle of a noise and remembered, at last, that he had something in his hands. He offered a drink to Mr. Blackwell with a jerk that sloshed the coffee a little.

“Hm. That’s much better.” Mr. Blackwell peeled off his work glove and let his long, slender fingers hover over the hot coffee cup. “Is this one mine?”

“Yes. Though I can’t imagine how you can stand a hot drink in this weather.”

“I’ll be cold in another few seconds,” Mr. Blackwell replied. He took his drink and popped the lid off, taking a sip. Enoch watched. It had to still be scorching, but Mr. Blackwell took a long, thirsty swallow and looked at Enoch with surprise as he licked his lips.

“Good?” Enoch asked. His voice was rough. Oh, dear.

“Very,” Mr. Blackwell said. “You actually got a pumpkin spice latte? At this time of year?”

Oh. “You were messing with me.”

“Absolutely,” Mr. Blackwell confirmed. His lips curled up in a gorgeous little smile and he wrapped them around his cigarette. “But now that I know you’ll deliver when I expect great things from you, I’ll have to make outrageous demands more often.”

“Demand away,” Enoch murmured. He twisted his own drink up out of the holder and took a sip.

“Well, then. Assignment number one -- get out of that suit and grab a crowbar.”

Enoch cleared his throat. “I’ve never actually performed any demolition, myself. Or construction, for that matter.”

Mr. Blackwell gave him a dry look. “You’re from the country. Surely you’ve raised a barn or two in your time?”

“No, not really. I can drive a tractor well enough, but the extent of my experience is hanging the occasional picture frame.”

Mr. Blackwell pffted and leaned on the railing pillar. “Your handyman much be raking it in.”

“I like to think of it as stimulating the economy,” Enoch replied. He didn’t actually have a handyman, but then again, until today he hadn’t known just how much he needed to have something screwed.

“All the same. Take off that suit jacket and get a crowbar. I think I can show you the basics. This is the easy part, anyway.”

“Easy? It seems like a lot of physical exertion.”

“We’re used to it. Bart chops his own wood and I work out.”

“Obviously,” Enoch muttered. Enoch was big, but he didn’t work on it. He wasn’t a particularly strong man, since his size was usually enough to intimidate without any additional persuasion.

Even despite his size advantage, Enoch thought it was good odds that wiry, powerful Mr. Blackwell could take him. The idea made his mouth dry.

“Demolition isn’t complicated,” Mr. Blackwell said. “Rip out some trim, trash a cornice. As repulsive as this is, it’s actually the fun part. You probably won’t want to be nearby when I’m laying floors.”

“Ah.”

“Strip,” Mr. Blackwell said in that imperious tone of voice, and oh, Enoch was going to remember that one. “I’ll find something for you to smash with. Where in hell is Lorna, incidentally? She disappeared twenty minutes ago.”

“I have no idea,” Enoch replied. If the girl wanted a break, she had almost definitely earned one.

“Hmm.” Mr. Blackwell disappeared into the house and Enoch began slowly getting out of his suit coat. There was a little folding chair set up on the back porch already, and he carefully folded his jacket and put in on the seat before rolling up his sleeves.

“All right,” Mr. Blackwell said, emerging with a pry bar and speaking around his cigarette. “I’ve got some truly repulsive carpet with your name on it. I’ve seen what appear to be five distinct kinds of bodily fluids on that thing, and if you can guess them all, you’ll win a prize.”

Enoch took the pry bar. “That’s a wide range.”

“When you see it, you’ll understand that there’s a wide range of possibilities.”

“Can I get a hint?”

“Only one of those fluids came from the mouth,” Mr. Blackwell teased.

“Oh, nice,” Enoch shuddered. “Does that mortgage payment suddenly seem as unreasonable to you as it does to me?”

Mr. Blackwell let out a bark of laughter.

“This is an exercise in investing sweat equity,” he replied. “Later we’ll do a blood ritual to really seal our ownership.”

“All right,” Enoch replied. “But if I’m traumatized by what I find in this carpet, I’m going to charge the psychologist visits to our joint account.”

“Bill me for your dry cleaning, while you’re at it,” Mr. Blackwell replied. “A seersucker suit? To visit a construction site? I’m sure I’m ashamed to be so sartorially outclassed, but you truly have no self-preservation instincts whatsoever, do you?”

“It’s part of my charm.”

“Hm,” Mr. Blackwell hummed for a few instants longer than could be considered complementary. “We might as well get started before we lose too much of the day. There might be beer later on, if you play your cards right, but between then and now you’re going need time for a cold shower.”

Enoch spluttered. “A cold…?”

“Yes,” Mr. Blackwell said. He shrugged. “I mean, I suppose it’s your preference, if you want to open up your pores enough to let the dust and microscopic splinters get in.”

“Oh.”

“Mm-hm,” Mr. Blackwell smiled with grim good humor. “I speak from excruciating experience. But if you work up a decent sweat beforehand, the cold water becomes almost pleasant.”

Well, that was a remarkably ugly notion, but the rest of the image was very pretty. All that pale skin and hard muscle tense and tight as fresh water slicked away all the grime and the well-earned, testosterone-riddled sweat…

“I’ll keep that in mind. Lead on,” Enoch said.

Mr. Blackwell knocked back the rest of his coffee in three big gulps and ground out his cigarette on a chipped plate set up on the bannister. He put his particulate respirator on and beckoned Enoch back in.

Enoch shouldered the pry bar and fit his mask over his face, and watched Mr. Blackwell’s backside as they returned to the abyss. Perhaps those mortgage payments weren’t so outrageous after all. The place did come with a spectacular view.


	7. Thrashed

They were working in the house on Third Street, putting up drywall, when Lorna stopped short and checked her watch. She pointed the nail gun at the floor.

“Oh, damn. Herod’s going to need someone to pick him up from his meeting,” Lorna said.

Enoch had been wondering where that handsome rascal had gotten off to. Here was a golden opportunity to get a few things off his chest. “I’ll go. You have your hands full.”

Lorna tilted her head. “Really?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve been meaning to talk to him and at any rate I could use the air.”

Lorna gave him a grateful look. “All right. He should be down at the parking lot by the Hannaford. He’ll be, uh, unmistakeable.”

Enoch smiled. “He usually is.”

Lorna gave Enoch a look. “You… didn’t know he was at this meeting, did you?”

“Well, I don’t like to pry.”

Lorna heaved a sigh. “Then I should warn you. He’s probably going to be covered in blood, but I promise it won’t be his. And he might not have eyebrows. Last time they broke his glasses and kind of cut his face. Not bad, of course, but enough.”

“What.” Enoch felt his eyes try and bulge out of his head. “What in God’s name –”

“The Thresher. You know. That awful interactive horror experience thing.”

Enoch recoiled. Oh, yes, he’d heard of the Thresher! Everyone had. They had a wait list some 20,000 people deep! “Ugh. Isn’t that just…legalized abuse?”

“Yeah, consensual abuse, for a given understanding of consensual. Basically torture porn. It’s repulsive. Plus just totally tasteless.”

“I never would’ve imagined that Mr. Blackwell would be interested in participating in that kind of thing,” Enoch said, cringing. “It seems so…not his style.”

“Oh! Don’t worry about that. He hates it! Hates it, hates it. Spits in their faces, literally. But he likes to break them,” Lorna said. “I almost wish I could believe his line about how you have to stand up to low standards or whatever, but I think he really just gets a kick out of ruining their day.”

Enoch frowned. “He can’t really be completely unaffected, can he? I mean, they bind and brutalize people. It’s intended to be an abusive situation.”

“I wouldn’t say he’s unaffected,” Lorna admitted. “They rough him up rather well, and a few times they’ve really shook him, but he treats it like a show. He won’t crack, and he won’t use a safeword. And they kidnapped him… my, about twenty four hours ago. He hasn’t been heard of since. He’ll be so pleased – that’s got to be a record.”

“Twenty-four– his health insurance people must be furious! The Threshe banks on the publicity of their medical check waivers. He’s going to hurt himself.”

Lorna shrugged. “Are we surprised by this?”

“I’m going to talk to him about it,” Enoch said firmly. “I don’t like the idea of him subjecting himself to this. Not even for spite.”

“Well, best of luck with that. I’d definitely be happier if he never did one again. It only puts him more on edge in the long run.” Lorna fired a nail into the wall. “If you want to make him happy, bring a cup of decaf. He won’t be able to tell the difference, no matter what he tells you.”

Enoch frowned deeply and headed out of the house on Third Street.

* * *

 

In the parking lot of the Hannaford, there was an artistically dilapidated white van with ruined, semi-hysterical people disembarking from it. They were filthy, mangled, and gibberingly high on whatever cocktail of chemicals their brains had spat out to respond to a nightmare of ugly stimulus.

Tucked away in the back of the group, Mr. Blackwell emerged last. He was covered in blood, his face and torn clothes smeared with half-dried filth. His hair had seen better days, and one of the lenses of his glasses seemed to be missing. He was smoking a cigarette, body loose and relaxed, and as the trembling victims disembarked he offered his hand to one of the employees. The large bearded man in clown makeup frowned and took it, helping him down.

Mr. Blackwell sipped his cigarette and glided off of the edge of the van. He turned to the employee and smiled, blowing the smoke in his face. Something at the base of Enoch’s spine tingled.

“Call me,” Mr. Blackwell purred. The employee made a disgusted grunt and dropped Mr. Blackwell’s hand, but Mr. Blackwell just laughed and walked away, turning his head this way and that.

He spotted Enoch and froze, one foot raised in mid-step before he caught his rhythm again.

“I asked Lorna to pick me up,” Mr. Blackwell said.

Enoch smiled and wiggled the cup of coffee at him. “I hope you don’t mind the last-minute switch?”

Mr. Blackwell looked tempted. He broke into a smile. “Mmm, shameless bribery, my favorite. I’m afraid you’re not seeing me at my best. I don’t imagine I make the most professional picture.”

“Well, no, but under such circumstances, who would? Did you enjoy yourself?”

“No,” Mr. Blackwell said. He took the coffee and swallowed a big gulp of it. “Not at all. Amateurs.”

“Really? This sort of thing is much too strong for my blood.”

“It’s the false advertising that gets to me.”

“I don’t think I follow.”

“I couldn’t care less, if you wanted to have some kind of extreme torture experience. But it’s not horror. It’s just basic degradation and abuse. It’s a kind of horror, to be sure, but it’s not really the right genre, if you follow me. Calling it ‘horror’ is just a slap in the face to professionals like us.” He rubbed his cheek. “Literally.”

Enoch looked Mr. Blackwell up and down, concerned. He started to reach for Mr. Blackwell’s side and stopped himself. “Should we stop by the emergency room?”

“Of course not. It’s just –” He raised his befouled wrist to his nose, as if smelling perfume. “Eugh. Pig’s blood. And I’m not delicate. I can take a slap in the face or six. It’s just a tedious experience. I brought a towel with me but I’m afraid it came to a sticky end.”

“I have a blanket in the trunk.” Enoch moved to the back of the car to fetch it.

“Perfect. I’ll wash it for you and bring it back.”

Mr. Blackwell finished his cigarette as he watched Enoch drape the emergency blanket over the passenger seat. Enoch held the door open for him and Mr. Blackwell smiled a distracted little smile as he crushed the cigarette against the pavement with a single precise press of his foot. He slipped in and Enoch closed the door after him.

Enoch turned on the engine and began to pull out of the parking lot. He rolled down both front-seat windows. Beside him, Mr. Blackwell huffed.

“This was why I wanted Lorna to come and get me,” he said. “I hardly care about being so disgusting around her. She was with me the weekend we put in the swamp, but you’ve never seen me anything less than fresh.”

Enoch cast him a broad smile. “When you get home, a shower is going to feel like a religious experience.”

“Hallelujah. Do you mind if I…?” He pulled out yet another cigarette.

“No, not at all.”

They paused at a red light and Enoch watched as Mr. Blackwell fit the cigarette between his lips. He fished a lighter out of his pants pocket and fumbled with it, trying to light it. His hands grappled unsteadily with it, long fingers twitching hard, and he hissed an impatient sigh as it he dropped it in his lap.

“Oh, here we go,” Mr. Blackwell grumbled. He clumsily scooped up the lighter, only to drop it again. “Son of a– ”

“Mr. Blackwell?”

Mr. Blackwell clasped both hands together tightly. They rattled at the ends of his arms. Enoch carefully reached into his lap and picked up the lighter. He flicked it and the bright little flame popped out of the end.

“Mm,” Mr. Blackwell said, sticking the end of his cigarette into the fire. He sucked rather harder than he should’ve and held his breath. He put his hands loosely in his lap and let them sit there and quiver.

Enoch closed the lighter and turned his attention to the road. He put both hands on the steering wheel and held them there.

“Apologies,” Mr. Blackwell sighed as they started down the block. “That was embarrassing. I thought I’d make it to my apartment. You can’t let them see you do that. They get the wrong idea.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Enoch asked.

“There isn’t much to say, really. They strike you, and mock you, and make you do degrading things. They bind you and put you in small spaces and such. They put live tarantulas on your face and menace you with chainsaws. I went to a different one a few years ago with waterboarding. You’ll be glad to know that group does not work in the business anymore.”

“For twenty-four whole hours?” Enoch asked, amazed.

“Oh, no. They didn’t last eighteen. I kept telling them to bring it on but I think they were actually out of ideas.” Mr. Blackwell gave him a giddy and rather worrying little smile. “This is what I mean. It’s just an endurance test. They’re all vapid little sadists, taking it out on people misguided enough to think that this constitutes horror.”

Enoch shook his head. “I’m just amazed that you would put yourself through this, Mr. Blackwell. You don’t seem to have enjoyed it.”

“I did not,” Mr. Blackwell agreed. “But I don’t like these people. I take a great deal of pleasure in breaking their little games.”

“But you’ve been horribly abused for a full day!” Enoch objected. “I’m worried about you. You’re clearly not well.”

Mr. Blackwell gave Enoch a surprised look. “Of course I’m rattled. How could I not be? But let me have a long shower and a decent meal and you’ll see that I’m absolutely fine. It’s purely physiological. These people don’t have any sense of psychological torture. They could never do anything that wasn’t just skin deep.”

Enoch heaved a sigh. They rode along in silence for a few minutes, the blood and something like the sour tang of vomit reeking in the car.

“I broke their record,” Mr. Blackwell said quietly. “Shattered it. They pride themselves on being unendurable for more than eight hours.”

Enoch had his reservations, but the quiet pride in Mr. Blackwell’s voice made him smile. “Oh?”

“Mm-hm. By the end I was offering my tormentors a break, if they needed one. They’ve never seen the likes of me before.”

“And not likely to again. Well done,” Enoch murmured. “Have they copped to it?”

“They will. There will be a splashy little thing on their home page, I expect. In fact might be interviewed over it. They are supposed to be quite infamous. Perhaps we should write a statement.” Mr. Blackwell breathed out a plume of silver smoke. “You can tell them how perfect my sang-froid was, after the fact.”

“It’d be an honor,” Enoch grinned. “And speaking of a decent meal, perhaps you’d let me take you out to dinner, to celebrate?”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Grange. That would be charming. Let me wash up and we can fetch Lorna and Adelaide and –”

Enoch smiled. “I mean, just the two of us.”

Mr. Blackwell tensed all over. Enoch glanced at him, surprised, before flicking his eyes back to the road.

“ _Are_ you all right?” Enoch asked. “I hope you’re not hiding some kind of serious injury out of pride, Mr. Blackwell.”

Mr. Blackwell was staring at him. He flicked the cigarette away and blew his last lungful of smoke out of his nose.

“…well, now,” Mr. Blackwell said. His tone sounded cool and considering. “This is interestingly cruel.”

“I beg your pardon?” Enoch asked.

“This. Perhaps I was giving them too little credit,” Mr. Blackwell said. “This does make for a disorienting psychological game.”

“…what?”

“Come now. You were a much better actor just seconds ago,” Mr. Blackwell said. “You very nearly had me! And while I’m at my most humiliated, all covered in blood and stinking and awful! What a perfect touch. How did they coax you into participating in this?”

Oh, no.

“You completed the experience, Mr. Blackwell,” Enoch said. “We aren’t–”

“Please! You really truly did almost have me, but now…there’s no coming back from that kind of shark-jumping, is there?” Mr. Blackwell let out a sound that was supposed to be a chuckle. There was no mirth in it. “Did you know by yourself, or did they tell you when they roped you in? Gave you lines and such?”

“I don’t–”

“I mean, they won’t call you a fag, but they’ll certainly let you know they’re thinking it. That is one thing I’ll give them. No swearing, no crass language, and no sexuality. It’s a rare and precious thing in this day and age. What does that tell you, hmmm? That I’ll give them higher marks for class than any of those haunts with scantily-clad and prettily made-up damsels running terrified from hulking, deformed men?”

Mr. Blackwell hummed. “Is that why you were willing to go along with it? Good breeding?”

Enoch stopped at a stoplight and turned his head to look Mr. Blackwell in the face. Anything he might’ve said died on his tongue. The man was giving him a look of unrelenting bloody-minded cheerfulness. If this was how he’d faced his tormentors, no wonder that they’d lost the will to proceed after 18 hours. He wasn’t going to listen.

Enoch felt a sudden surge of warmth for him. What a baffling, impossible man he was. Enoch wanted to hold his stuttering hands, which twitched like spiders in his lap.

“What an excellent farce,” Mr. Blackwell said. “You’re to be commended. This is legitimately interesting – the experience in the house was so unbalanced. It needed a real tension. A pull towards something the victim wants, worthy to equal the threat of what they were menaced with. And you can always torment someone more easily with what they want than with that of which they are afraid. Your presence shows some real thought on their part. I wonder if they did a bit of a profile on me, to know what it was I wanted.”

“My,” Enoch said. “That’s very flattering, Mr. Blackwell. I’m a little embarrassed.”

“Imagine how I feel!” Mr. Blackwell said shrilly. “Panting after you, it seems, since Halloween. This is certainly what I get for being so obvious. You must be relieved that I’ve caught on! At the rate we were going, you might’ve had to kiss me.”

Enoch eyes dropped to his mouth. Even in a face smeared with gore and filth, Mr. Blackwell’s mouth was not to be missed.

“You’ll forgive me if I hold onto that offer for later,” Enoch said. He turned his attention back to the road and continued on.

“Certainly, certainly. Would it be violating the occasion, to ask you for any more hints about what awaits me in my apartment? Bart with a crowbar in the pantry? Lorna in my bathtub?”

“I’m sure I dare not speculate,” Enoch replied.

They were quiet for a while, passing city blocks with a few noonday passersby. When Mr. Blackwell spoke, his tone was different. His voice sounded tight and he was looking out the window.

“I hope this doesn’t make you uncomfortable,” Mr. Blackwell said. “It’s not fair of them to bring this up to you in such a way. I am sorry about that. But these are unscrupulous sadists, and not particularly well-socialized ones. A ruined business relationship can hardly matter to them.”

“Oh, I think we can bounce back from this, and I hope you agree. I’m sure you’ll find that it’s not my intention to be cruel –”

“Remarkable way of making good on that intention, Mr. Grange.”

“– and I certainly don’t mind that you’re attracted to me. To be very candid, I’d always rather hoped you might be.”

Another humorless laugh. “Oh, ouch, ouch. That’s going to run me through and keep me up all night, rest assured. They could learn a lot from you, even if they don’t want to go into horror in a meaningful way. You know your way around torment.”

“You should see what I can do with pleasure.”

Mr. Blackwell looked him up and down. The examination lasted just a bit too long to be as sharp and sarcastic as he’d probably like it to seem. “Tch. Incorrigible.”

They drove in silence the rest of the way. When they arrived at Mr. Blackwell’s apartment, Enoch parked and got out to open Mr. Blackwell’s door.

“Such a gentleman,” Mr. Blackwell said, taking Enoch’s offered hand to pull himself out of the car. “Would you like to come up?”

“I’m still worried about your condition,” Enoch admitted, “but I think you may feel more comfortable on your own for a bit. Enjoy that shower.”

“Oh, I will. I’ll be thinking of you,” Mr. Blackwell said. His tone reminded Enoch as nothing so much as honey-glazed barbed wire. He couldn’t help but smile.

“I’ll try and check in on you later in the weekend?”

“How sweet.”

“And if you should happen to change your mind, please consider the dinner invitation still valid,” Enoch said. “I’d love to take you out.”

Mr. Blackwell theatrically covered his heart with a hand. “Cruel man. You must stop. It’ll break, and there was barely enough of it to work in the first place.”

Enoch shook his head. “Have a good rest, Mr. Blackwell. You’ve earned it. And congratulations again.”

Mr. Blackwell whipped the ruined blanket off of the passenger’s seat, hooked it over his shoulder, and gave Enoch a jaunty little salute. “I’ll see you Monday. Thank you for the ride.”

“Anytime.”

Mr. Blackwell blew him another of those supremely sardonic kisses and disappeared into his apartment building. Enoch watched after him for a minute or two, half to just bask in this newfound knowledge and half to let the car air out a bit.

Panted after him, hmm? Enoch was going to have to make that worth his while.

* * *

 

Enoch’s phone rang at 2 a.m. on Saturday night. There was only one person that could be.

Enoch rolled over, cleared his throat, and picked up his phone. “Good evening, Mr. Blackwell.”

“Christ. I can’t believe you picked up.”

“I did.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

“I apologize. I knew it was you and I couldn’t resist.”

“ _Christ_ ,” Mr. Blackwell moaned.

“We can forget the whole thing, if you’d like,” Enoch said. “I don’t want to cause you undue embarrassment.”

“Forget it? I don’t think you’ve ever made an ass of yourself quite the way I did, so let me tell you that it is not a sensation prone to fading quickly. And even if I could, I won’t be forgetting about that sick sense of humor of yours…”

Enoch let out a soft laugh. “You’re not the first person to call it that.”

“I’m sure I’m not. I was furious. Completely humiliated. And it hasn’t gotten much better in the interim.”

Enoch frowned a little. “I’m sorry. I didn’t quite know how to respond to it.”

“No, no,” Mr. Blackwell said, much too softly for Enoch’s taste. “You did the best you could. You were very patient. Consider this an apology, for thinking you were capable of that kind of thing.”

“It’s not necessary, but it is accepted and appreciated. So… do you think you’d like to go to dinner sometime?”

Mr. Blackwell didn’t say a word.

“There’s an excellent little place just outside of Pottsfield. If you go early, they’ll let you pick the steer you’ll have for supper. And I believe they still make their own wine.”

“I…” Mr. Blackwell’s voice wavered. Enoch waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.

“Wonderful graveyard country out that way, too,” Enoch offered. “Gets on to woods near the back, and you sometimes find little plots in between the trees. Civil War, in some places. Makes for a splendid evening walk.”

Enoch heard a glass clink against porcelain.

“I’m trying not to say anything pathetic here,” Mr. Blackwell said. “It’s a struggle.”

“Oh, now…” He heard Mr. Blackwell take a deep breath.

“Dinner would be very nice,” Mr. Blackwell murmured.

Enoch grinned.

“But I hope you won’t call me ‘Mr. Blackwell’ all night,” Mr. Blackwell went on in a more robust tone. “‘Herod’ has served me well for many years and I have usually found it sufficient.”

“Perfect. In that case, how’s Sunday night for you, Herod?”

Herod huffed. “I think I can move some things around. You betray a flattering eagerness, Enoch.”

“Strike while the iron is hot. Besides, this way I can make sure that you don’t have any lasting damage from the Thresher.”

“I’ll have an interview with Haunt Magazine soon, as a matter of fact. It’s nice to see that people recognize the accomplishments of individuals in their community.”

“As well they should,” Enoch said warmly, “after you suffered so my physical and psychological trauma in pursuit of your achievement.”

“Tch.” Enoch heard another clink. “I’m going to hang up now and let you go to sleep. I have a bath to finish.”

“Sounds good. Think of me.”

“Oh, God.”

Herod hung up.

Enoch laid back in bed and rubbed his head against the pillows, smiling up at the ceiling.

Thank goodness it wasn’t cow blood Herod had been drenched in. He’d hate to think of the poor man being off his appetite tomorrow.


	8. Too Hot to Hold

Enoch had speculated a great deal on what Mr. Blackwell might enjoy as far as romantic assignations were concerned, but he hadn’t really been prepared for Herod at all. Maybe it was just the lingering association from having exclusively met Herod for the first dozen or so times in a frigid cold room, but Enoch had yet to get over his astonishment at what a warm man Herod could be.

Nearly nocturnal, Herod liked quiet suppers by candlelight and long walks through predawn streets. Herod liked red wines and dark chocolate, snuggling in front of a roaring fireplace, and tours of museums that had display cases full of rusty thumbscrews and misshapen things in jars. Herod sent him flowers, which no one had ever done before, and now and then Enoch would return home to find perched on his porch a vase full of of decapitated stems and a box of frilly, fragrant heads.

“Romantic?” Herod had sneered when he’d brought it up. He’d lit the sixteenth candle in his living room, fluffed one more pillow, and waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t be insulting, Enoch. Bring dessert over and let’s curl up.”

Herod also liked to take things slow.

“I’m not used to seeing someone for more than a few days,” he’d explained. “Don’t think it’s a lack of interest on my part, but I’m curious to see what all the fuss is about. Perhaps we could take our time with each other.”

Of course Enoch hadn’t objected, especially not when he’d caught the slight whisper of uncertainty in the tone of Herod’s voice. It only made sense—it was an opportunity for them to get to know one another outside of their professional lives, and to enjoy one another’s company without adding even more pressure to perform on their performance-heavy plates. He didn’t feel he was missing anything, not yet at least: Herod liked kisses and soft touches, perhaps even more than Enoch did, and it was nice to leave some of the frenetic fire for later.

It was something to look forward to, as well. He had to look forward, in fact, because the weather was so uncommonly awful.

Enoch preferred autumn for almost all reasons one might prefer a season, but he especially liked it because it wasn’t so disgustingly hot. He sweated in the summertime, and felt generally overheated and disgusting at temperatures above 75 degrees. A string of 90-degree days always left him longing for the sweet embrace of Death.

Luckily, Herod had been busy coordinating an exclusive first run of the Conservatory for a few reporters from various horror, haunt, and travel publications. Enoch hated to be glad for it, but Herod’s apartment wasn’t air conditioned, and much as he loved the thought of getting a little quality time with his sweetheart, the sensation of skin on skin and humid breath would be unendurable. Having Herod busy with work, and temporarily no more than a disembodied voice on the telephone at 2 a.m., made it a little bit easier to avoid.

But he did miss the sight of the man, and now he was looking forward to feasting his eyes. The first run has only just finished when Enoch got out of the office, and it wasn’t a long drive from Pottsfield to the Conservatory.

When he stepped in, it was to meet the tail end of a crew meeting. Heads swiveled around to face him, with huge grins plastered across their mouths.

Herod flicked his eyes at him, stifling a smile, and finished saying his piece with a lackadaisical, “… so we’ll see if they print anything valuable. That’s all.”

“How did it go?” Enoch asked.

Lorna looked ready to burst with joy, but she kept her voice carefully measured. “I think it was good! The bedroom scene was very well-received, and I think the stables won’t be forgotten in a hurry!”

“Or easily!” one of the new recruits laughed.

“I didn’t think the little one was going to make it out of the hallway of hands!”

“Liked the tower fairly well,” Bart grumbled.

“And the tintinnabulation chamber!”

“You may thank Arvo Pärt,” Herod muttered. “Now, let’s not get excited. It was barely a passable run.”

“Oh, come on. It was pretty good, wasn’t it? They seemed into it,” Lorna insisted. Enoch was a bit surprised—that was as far as he’d ever seen Lorna contradict Herod in front of the crew.

“Is that your opinion? Very well. All the same, Enoch, I need to speak with you,” Herod intoned, tilting his head towards the back door. “There’s something we should discuss about this. You are dismissed, people. I know there is work to be done before September and if it isn’t done…”

Herod let that dangle; Enoch’s mind provided the awful noise that he could only imagine would accompany Herod’s displeasure. The crew dispersed quickly.

“Do you have a moment to talk?” Herod asked Enoch, looking calm and severe.

“Of course. Lead the way.”

Herod nodded sharply and turned on a heel, walking out through the foyer towards the back of the house. Enoch exchanged a concerned look with Lorna and followed, trying to read clues in Herod’s rigid posture. The actors hadn’t been exaggerating that much, had they? But if there was something seriously off in the performance or some grave issue with the house, that would spell trouble for September and beyond. Enoch’s stomach soured a little.

Herod walked out onto the porch and waited for Enoch to join him before he closed the back door. Enoch sighed as the hot air engulfed him again, sticking to sweat that had only just grown cool inside the house. Awful.

“Well, sugar, what’s the—”

Herod seized upon him like a lamprey, arms flung around him and holding tight as he pressed a hard kiss to Enoch’s mouth. Enoch’s body knew what it was about before his mind processed it, and in short order he had both hands full of Herod, one between his shoulder blades and the other at the small of his back. Herod leaned back into his touch as Enoch met his ferocity in equal measure, locking their lips together and pressing back against Herod’s attempts to control the kiss. Someone opened his mouth first and it was several long second before either of them attempted to speak.

When they broke apart to breathe, Enoch shifted uncomfortably. Well, he was definitely sweating now. Herod had one leg hitched over his hip and placed a dozen ragged kisses to Enoch’s mouth and cheeks. He was panting and it would’ve been absolutely lovely, if it weren’t for the damn heat. Herod’s breath was warm.

“So,” Enoch asked, “how’d it go?”

Herod snorted and pressed himself closer. Oh, that so nice, but—

“Sure thing. A shoo-in. They left crying,” he rasped. He was grinning with unrestrained delight, practically glowing from the inside out. “In actual tears.”

Enoch laughed and ran his hand up Herod’s back. Herod was usually so cool, a little slip of ice that Enoch always felt he needed to warm up, but today, even his hands were hot. Enoch was sweltering, clothes sticking to his skin.

“Ours is a charmed profession. Try to get that kind of job satisfaction anywhere else.”

Herod let out a bark of laughter and Enoch gave him a squeeze. “They’d sue! Oh, darling—”

He lifted his hands to Enoch’s cheeks and held him steady for another, slower, softer kiss. Enoch loved the feeling of Herod’s beard and moustache brushing against his own, the soft sense of scratchy interconnectedness, the way he tilted his own head and fit himself to Enoch’s mouth like he wanted to make a home there. Gorgeous and passionate and twisted as a noose, and hot as all hellfire, literally. Herod gently nibbled as his lips and Enoch wanted to push him up against the wall of the house they’d built together and do something to him, everything, except—

“—I am a very, very happy man,” Herod murmured against his mouth, punctuating each word with kisses. “And you!”

His hands slipped around to pet the back of Enoch’s head and lightly fingered the dip at the top of Enoch’s spinal column. He pressed himself even closer, wedging up to Enoch’s skin and pulling a bead of sweat out of Enoch’s temple to trickle down the side of his head.

“You brilliant, devious man,” Herod went on. “You depraved, wonderful—the greenhouse, your greenhouse, nearly killed them.”

Oh! That was lovely!

“Really? It went over so well?”

“God, yes,” Herod purred, taking another deep, long kiss from Enoch’s mouth.

He slithered against Enoch like a hot snake, trying to get closer like he wanted to burrow inside. The thought was awful, and Enoch felt suddenly as if there was nothing to him, or to Herod, but overheated, sticky skin. Enoch broke the kiss with a little difficulty.

“Oh, honey, that’s—”

“I think I need to celebrate,” Herod breathed. “Why don’t we make our excuses so I can take you home and do unutterably ghastly things to you?”

Enoch’s heart said ‘yes.’

All the other parts of Enoch observed that the heart was perfectly accustomed to pounding hard at an average temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit with high humidity, but the rest of the body wasn’t quite as resilient.

“Sweetheart,” Enoch said, and immediately perceived that this was the wrong way to put it. His voice sounded patient.

Herod’s muscles lost that wonderful fluidity and he hitched his leg back off of Enoch’s hip, setting his left foot back down on the ground.

“I want to,” Enoch insisted. “Absolutely. Nothing would make me happier.”

“But you regret to inform me that…?” Herod asked. He wasn’t moving out of Enoch’s arms, by any stretch of the imagination, but his eyes had that sharp glint that showed he was already casting about for the most graceful possible exit from the situation he’d found himself in.

“It’s the air conditioning, sugar,” Enoch said weakly. “It’s so hot, really, and the fans in your apartment don’t cut it.”

“Then we’ll go to yours.”

“House guests,” Enoch cringed.

“Mm.” Herod started dragging a finger down Enoch’s chest. “And I suppose you can’t precisely put a tie on your front door, can you? Could be considered a cry for help.”

“No. They’d know I was bragging. I’m sorry, sweetness, I really am. Nothing would make me happier, but in this weather… I just can’t.”

Herod scrutinized him for a moment or two, apparently checking to see if that was really the stumbling point. He presently became satisfied that Enoch was telling him the truth and hummed.

“Well, so it goes. We’d been patient thus far with relatively little permanent damage, and I suppose that I shouldn’t try to make you suffer, just because years in an icebox have deadened my own nerves.”

“I don’t think they’re quite dead yet,” Enoch said, running a hand up Herod’s back.

Herod made a face and leaned into the touch. “Don’t tease.”

Enoch unhurriedly took his hands away. “But congratulations, sugar, really. I’m so glad it went well!”

“You’re to be commended yourself,” Herod said, smiling very slightly. “You having some small influence on the house, such as it is.”

“We do need to celebrate. Do you have a shift tonight, or can I take you out to dinner?”

Herod checked his wristwatch. “Yes, I believe you may. We should try to make the most of the last week until the full season opens, shouldn’t we?”

Enoch smiled a little to himself. Once the weather got cooler, perhaps they could arrange to share the bed in Herod’s apartment. If fall took its time, the most Enoch would see of Herod through September, October, and most of November would be phone calls at 2 a.m.

Unless, of course, he took a Thursday off… but that might only torment the both of them, when they only had two minutes to themselves. He hoped it would be cool, and soon. If Herod really wanted to whisper scraps of gruesome escapades in Enoch’s ear, surely that could happen while they were spooning.

“You don’t want to have to start terrifying people on an empty stomach,” Enoch agreed.

“Start?” Herod gave him a sardonic look and turned to head back into the house, but not before Enoch caught the quicksilver flicker of his smile.

Enoch followed him in. They wrapped up a few administrative odds and ends, setting the various machinery of the house back to start in anticipation of the evening’s few early-season patrons.

Herod didn’t like the idea of being away from House in the Wastes for longer than a night or two, as a rule, and agreed to perform at the Conservatory once a week. It had been a wrench, and Enoch knew his business partner didn’t yet trust the crop of actors and the stage manager they’d brought on to run the place in the absence of Herod’s ever-watching and exacting eye, but Lorna had stepped up to volunteer her attention on a slightly more regular basis. Tonight, Herod waved an unconcerned hand at the girl and Enoch gave her a grateful smile as they made their way out the door.

After about an hour of conversation, candlelight, and the remarkably pleasant sensation of Herod hooking their ankles together and occasionally rubbing further up Enoch’s calf, Herod paused in the middle of a bite of dessert and reached for his phone.

Enoch took the opportunity to carve a sizable piece away from Herod’s molasses spice cake and gave him a wide-eyed look when Herod growled at his phone. “Something wrong?”

“Probably,” Herod grumbled, texting rapidly. He hit send and pocketed the phone once more. “When we’re done here, I’d like you to drop me off at Wastes.”

“I thought the house wasn’t open tonight.”

“It isn’t, but Bart was supposed to look in on it.”

Enoch lifted an eyebrow. “You have security systems, don’t you?”

Herod gave him a baleful stare and slowly blinked his beautiful eyes. “No, of course not. You know how much I like leaving things up to chance. Anyone will tell you that I thrill at opportunities for spontaneity and investing my trust in my fellow man. I wouldn’t dream of installing a security system.”

Enoch tried not to smile and made another move on the spice cake, carrying away a little morsel under Herod’s cool eyes. “And what have you heard, then, from Bart’s report?”

“Bart is furnished, among his other paltry amenities, with nerves and eyes, and was able to pick up what the security systems could not. He wonders if something may or may not be wrong with the A/C. I would like to know for certain.”

“Oh, yes, I would imagine so. Why, after that power outage in December, it’s worth confirming that all the wiring is still good to go.”

Herod glowered. Enoch gave him a little grin. He couldn’t help himself—the moment Herod stopped being charming when he was being teased would be the moment Enoch stopped teasing him.

“It is fine, Enoch,” Herod intoned. “I’m flattered that you appear to think me omnipotent but I cannot actually be held responsible for the vagaries of either Mother Nature or the municipal electrical company.”

“Well, no, dear. If you had authority over them I’m fairly sure they’d be fired.”

Herod rolled his eyes and easily parried the next attempt Enoch made on his dessert, pinning the bowl of Enoch’s spoon to the tablecloth with his coffee spoon and using a fork to strike beyond the line of demarcation established by the dinner candles and take a vulture’s bite out of Enoch’s dark chocolate torte. Pressing the tines between his lips, Herod made one of his rare happy noises and Enoch watched his long, slender throat bob.

“Do you think they’d ask us to leave if I fed you a bite?” Enoch asked, as Herod let him move his spoon again.

Herod flicked his eyes up and gave him an admonishing caress across the ankle. “Don’t tease.”

They finished their meals, played a bit more footsie, and paid the bill. Enoch drove through the zigzags streets that stretched between the restaurant and House in the Wastes with a hand on Herod’s knee, listening to his descriptions of the “guests” the Conservatory had entertained that afternoon.

“In broad daylight,” Herod concluded with a satisfied sigh. “Scared witless in broad daylight. I felt ten years younger.”

Enoch smiled and pulled into one of the staff spots in the haunt’s parking lot. “And do you think they’ve digested any of the overall aesthetic? Or figured out how it connects to the overall narrative?”

Herod unbuckled his seatbelt with a ‘pfft.’ “No, of course not. Buckets of blood and distressed damsels are what these people know.”

“A shame.”

“Indeed,” Herod said. He leaned over and lightly kissed Enoch’s lips. “But that’s what I have my connoisseurs for, isn’t it? Good night, Enoch. I’ll make my own way home.”

“Nooo,” Enoch insisted. Herod was already climbing out of the car. “I’ll come with.”

“It won’t be interesting. Well, unless it’s titanically bad, at which point it’ll be interesting but probably not something you’ll want to see.”

“You know I like getting to see the house stripped down. It’d be a pleasure.”

Herod gave him a long look and shrugged his shoulders. “All right. It’ll be nice to have a little company, so at least I’m not swearing at myself.

“I like to be a resource when I can.”

Herod snorted and gave him a crooked smile. Enoch’s stomach dipped a little and he followed his lover up the steps and through the front door.

The general lights were on, making it easier to navigate the first few floors. Now as ever Enoch admired the sheer depth of detail Herod had put into this haunt, from the pictures on the walls to the wallpaper’s condition, from the scratches and whorls on the hardwood floor to the feel of the newel post on the first floor steps. 

It was cool inside, so if the air conditioning was out of whack it was at least functioning at some level of efficiency; either that or the artistic dilapidation of the Victorian manor belied exceptionally well-insulated wall. Having recently watched Herod redo a house, Enoch thought that was probably the more likely explanation.

“I’m going to kill him,” Herod grumbled once they’d seen the last of the second floor. “It seems fine to me. Are you seeing anything?”

“Nothing you’d have missed.”

“Let me check the attic, then. If you’re not wanted by your house guests, perhaps we should see if anything’s playing downtown…?”

Enoch smiled and followed him up the steps. “Sounds good. And this is a treat… I’m not used to being escorted up here by the master of the house himself.”

“Step into my boudoir, trembling mortal,” Herod intoned in the Beast voice. Enoch snickered to cover the little tickle of excitement that sent down his spine.

Herod opened the door of the attic and a waft of freezing cold air came billowing out of the room, carrying the decaying-vegetation and burnt-meat smell of the Beast scene. Enoch sighed from the soul, enjoying the all-over relief as the air went to work on his skin and the scent made his brain tingle. It was pleasant inside the rest of the house, but it took a while for him to cool down. This was so much more like it.

“Damn,” Herod said. He slipped into the room, operating effortlessly in the dark until he reached the other side. “It shouldn’t be running this high when the building is empty. Seems I will not kill Bart after all. If it’s kicked on by itself, I’m going to have to gut the HVAC people…”

“Mm, why change it?” Enoch followed Herod into the room, rather more uncertainly. “Isn’t it a relief from the heat?”

“It costs a great deal to keep this place at the right temperature, and if the timer’s broken… Oh, hang on, you don’t know this room as well as I do. Let me get the light.”

In the dark, Enoch heard a soft click and the fireplace at the far side of the room burst into white, unearthly flames. In the flickering light he could see more of the floor and the strange warped walls, and then Herod himself, fussing with a control dial near the staff door.

“No safety strips?” Enoch asked lightly.

Herod snapped his head around and gave him a sneer. The light of the fireplace caught his eyes and for a heart-stammering moment Enoch almost thought he had those glowing, terrifying contacts in—but of course not. Still, how absolutely lovely he was…

“I’m going to get a clipboard and wander around Potter’s Field, making little disapproving comments and giving the carts baleful looks,” Herod said. He had his phone out and seemed to finish up a text before shoving it back in his pocket. “Poke a few holes in the ambiance.”

“Oh, no. I don’t do that, do I? I’m not saying I’d prefer safety strips to a beautiful burst of hellfire—I’m only asking out of curiosity. It wouldn’t set the right mood.”

“Yes, the right mood for a maintenance check. Of course. Tell me, Enoch, am I really so entertaining when I’m wound up? Or do you just tease for sport?”

The dial beside Herod’s hand made a soft click and the fans in the room slowly spun themselves out. The walls stopped rebounding with cold air and Enoch sighed, a little disappointed.

“You’re a passionate man, sugar. I’m infatuated with it.”

“Hm. Even if it’s the passion of irritation?” Herod asked, crossing the floor towards him.

“I’ll take what I can get.”

Herod paused, less than a foot away. He looked up at Enoch and tilted his head a few precise degrees. “Will you, indeed.”

A few things clicked into place. Enoch felt a smile break across his face. “Oh, my word…”

“Pardon me?”

He reached out and put a hand on Herod’s waist, drawing him closer. Herod blinked and set a hand on Enoch’s arm, expression bemused in the unsteady white light.

“Bart was never here, was he?” Enoch purred.

“What? He—”

Enoch kissed Herod’s cheek, setting his other hand on the man’s hip and holding him in place. “Mmhm. You sly minx… when did you start planning this?”

Herod met Enoch’s kiss but tried to talk despite it. His breath puffed against Enoch’s mouth again, and this time it felt so good, a soft burst of warmth where the cold was beginning to make itself truly felt.

“Enoch—”

“I absolutely fell for it,” Enoch murmured, nipping his lips. “Walked right into your web. You’re so good at that, sweetness. I never see how you do it until it’s done.”

Herod swallowed hard and Enoch grinned, kissing him long and slow. Herod let out a soft happy noise and Enoch pressed the advantage, pulling Herod entirely into his arms and cupping the back of his head. Herod melted gloriously against his body, soft mouth meshing with Enoch’s and legs linking together until Herod had his hips pressed closer to Enoch’s leg and vice versa.

Enoch let out a low growl of a sound, feeling Herod pressed all along his body, at long last. Herod’s breath hitched at the noise and he paused the kiss, tilting his head to fit them together in a new way. His long, lovely hands were already cool to the touch, and Enoch bundled him up more thoroughly, trying to keep him warm and close. One hand found purchase on the join of Enoch’s shoulder and neck and the other skittered up and down Enoch’s arm, petting feverishly for a few seconds before stopping and squeezing.

Herod broke the kiss, breathing fast. Enoch pecked his lips and started down towards his jaw.

“Mmph, listen, listen.” Herod arched his neck and leaned closer as Enoch ran a trail of kisses down the column of his throat. The hand on Enoch’s shoulder moved to the back of his neck and tightened, keeping him pressed to Herod’s neck. “I don’t run this kind of house, Enoch.”

“Thank heaven it’s not running tonight, hmm?” Enoch began worrying Herod’s pulse point with his teeth, sucking gently at the skin.

“You’re, oh— n-not supposed to touch the performers,” Herod protested. It didn’t seem very sincere, not when it ended in a sound suspiciously like a whine and the man wriggled in Enoch’s arms. “Nor I to touch you. It’s not Thursday.”

“Good,” Enoch murmured, shifting up for another kiss. “I don’t want to only be allowed to touch parts of you.”

Herod caught the kiss, meeting him halfway and opening his mouth to brush a hot, soft tongue against Enoch’s own. He tasted like spice cake and coffee and Enoch made a helpless little noise as Herod played with his mouth. His knees were going weak.

When Herod drew his tongue back, it was to press feverish kisses against Enoch’s lips and drag his mouth across Enoch’s cheek. Enoch nuzzled against Herod’s temple as Herod kissed just before his ear and nibbled at his earlobe, sending an unexpected little rush through Enoch’s veins.

“That’s touching with your hands,” Herod murmured. His voice had gone lower and even deeper, and Enoch’s breath caught at the sound of it. “I never codified anything about where you can touch with your mouth.”

Enoch’s heart jumped in his chest and his pulse pounded against Herod’s hips. “I’m going to need you naked if I’m to properly exploit that.”

Herod huffed a laugh against his skin and let a hand steal down Enoch’s back, giving his rump a squeeze. “In the dark?”

That was a good point. Feeling and tasting Herod would be marvelous, but not being able to see him clearly? No.

“Mmm. The light is more atmospheric than functional, isn’t it?”

“Why, thank you,” Herod crooned, squeezing his ass again and going in for a kiss. Enoch leaned away, teasing a bit more.

“It is,” Enoch added, petting up Herod’s back. “You know, the brain interprets fear and desire in the same ways. Same symptoms, too. Pupils dilated, heart racing, higher adrenaline output, rapid breathing.”

“Mmhm…”

Enoch dodged another kiss, tilting his head back. Herod took him up on it, kissing his skin hungrily and giving him a soft but thrilling bite. “Even orgasm itself is frightening. Some people stop at the very edge because wires get crossed and the pleasure and fear become too indistinguishable.”

“Fascinating,” Herod mumbled, sounding much more interested in his own attempts to seize Enoch’s mouth again.

“And I only bring this up because it probably explains why I’m always keyed up around you. You make me want you so much, beautiful, but you scare the hell out of me, too.”

Herod paused at that and let out a long, harsh breath.

“Oh, _darling_ ,” he rasped, clutching Enoch tighter and claiming his mouth in a rough, hungry kiss. Herod ground against his hips, heavy circles and little bucks rubbing their cocks together.

“No wonder they left crying,” Enoch panted. “Just look at you. You’re incredible—terrifying, gorgeous, brilliant, twisted, passionate… No one else can do what you do. You must’ve left them aching and shattered. That’s how you always leave me.”

Herod let out a little mewl of a noise, hot and bothered and wonderfully needy. Enoch took a long, deep kiss from him, teasing Herod’s mouth and pulling out all the little tricks he’d learned from a few sweet, slow months of kissing and touching. Herod clung to him, letting Enoch do as he liked, frantic hands trying to get closer, touch more. Again, Enoch had the thought that Herod wanted to burrow inside him, and now, oh, what a heavenly idea it was…

Enoch eased the kiss into a softer mode, pressing against tender and sensitized skin with every touch. Herod whimpered.

“The things you say,” he breathed, rolling his hips against Enoch’s leg. “Talk to me like that on the next phone call and I’ll never forgive you.”

Enoch chuckled and took another kiss from him.

Herod shifted his weight and pushed Enoch across the floor and up against the wall, boxing him in. Enoch gasped. Oh, that gorgeous strength—it was never far from Enoch’s thoughts, the knowledge of how wiry and powerful and tattooed Herod was beneath his turtlenecks and button-ups, but he’d never been privileged with a personal demonstration before.

His heart flipped inside him, as Herod pinned his wrists to the wall and held him in place, taking Enoch’s mouth and grinding their hips together.

“Now then,” Herod murmured, holding Enoch’s eyes with his own and making it impossible to look away. “I said I’d do unutterably ghastly things, didn’t I?”

“Yes…!”

“I think you can imagine why I won’t be able to utter them,” Herod smiled. He was beautiful in the flickering firelight, dark and devilish and sublime in his own territory. He licked his lips. “Does that sound like a plan to you, darling?”

Enoch nodded eagerly, causing Herod to release his wrists so he could cup Enoch’s face and give him one more peck on the lips before Herod sank to his knees and started on his trousers. At some southern point on the zipper’s track, Enoch’s brain managed to catch up with everybody else. He looked down at Herod and found his words nearly frozen in his throat, burned out of his mind by the heat in Herod’s gaze as he leered at Enoch.

Herod caught his eyes and smiled up at him, all teeth and affection and mischief, and Enoch’s stomach dipped. He was the most gorgeous, terrifying man in the world, and Enoch needed to have him. He tried not to whine, horribly torn between wanting to please Herod and wanting to let Herod do absolutely anything he wanted.

“But I want—I should be celebrating you, sugar…! You’re the one who had a good day.”

Herod let out a husky laugh, breath puffing against the thin fabric of Enoch’s underclothes. The cold on his sensitive skin had been a shocking experience moments ago, but Herod pressed himself close and nuzzled the swell of his cock, making him hotter and harder to compensate. Enoch groaned through his teeth and shakily pushed his hips forward, knocking his head back against the wall when Herod’s fingers started teasing him through his clothes.

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll celebrate me in due time, that I promise.” Herod kissed Enoch’s cock through the thin cotton and pushed his waistband down. “Mmm, that’s very nice. I don’t think you’ll have to wait too long to switch places with me.”

He’d been visiting this room for eleven years, thinking vividly about doing something like this for the last twelve months. In those fantasies, it had lasted and lasted, but to be precise it hadn’t been his back on the wall.

No, it probably wasn’t going to take long, at that.

* * *

Herod wouldn’t smoke in the house, so Enoch escorted him down to the porch for a direly-needed post-coital cigarette. A thunderstorm was just kicking up, and Enoch sat in the sturdiest porch chair with Herod sprawled on his lap and chest, touching him dreamily and occasionally sharing a mouthful of smoke with him, letting silver vapor rise up to the humid but cooling air as they kissed.

“That was exquisite,” Herod murmured.

“Mmhm. Indeed it was, beautiful. Probably my favorite time visiting you in that room.”

“Probably?”

“Well, I do love to watch you work.”

“Hmm. Knowing you love it that much, it might be harder for me to resist combining the two experiences next time.”

“Oh, no, sugar. I know you’re a consummate professional.”

“Sweet-talker,” Herod purred, undoing one or two buttons on Enoch’s shirt as he kissed his lips. His fingers, still cold from the room, traced the V of revealed skin. Enoch budged him closer in.

“That said… was it worth a broken rule or two?”

“Nothing’s written down. Who broke anything?”

“Good point,” Enoch conceded, dipping his fingertips just beneath Herod’s waistband.

Out in the parking lot, a car pulled up. Enoch lifted his eyebrows and craned his neck, trying to see who it might be.

“Don’t worry,” Herod said, adjusting himself into a deeper melt on Enoch’s body. “It’s Bart.”

“What?”

“Mm-hm. If he’s only arriving now, we’re fine. I’m sure he didn’t hear anything.”

“Wh- why is he here?”

“For the HVAC, Enoch.” Herod picked his head up and gave him a sly little smile, sucking on his cigarette. “Don’t tell me it was that good a blowjob.”

“I thought you made that up!”

It was unfair, really, just how good a look self-satisfaction was on Herod. Made it nearly impossible to stay annoyed at him.

“Oh, I know you did. But I thought there was no real danger of being interrupted, so why not proceed?”

“Herod!”

“Enoch!” Herod laughed.

“I’m scandalized.”

“Oh, now. I’m only doing what you so deliciously praised me for. Do you know what makes a good performer? Really? The essential piece?”

“What,” Enoch asked, not very annoyed and growing ever less annoyed as Herod brushed their lips together while delivering this acting lecture. That was one way to hold a student’s attention, certainly. Maybe he should’ve tried this when he was explaining the overlap between fear and desire.

“They know how to bring their audience into their world with them. They use their audience’s mood and receptivity and make it a part of a seamless whole. Why on earth would I have spoiled the experience by telling you ‘no’? Least of all when I could roll with your read of the situation and create—I think I can say this—a fairly pitch-perfect experience for both of us.”

“Hmm…” Enoch tried to lock him in a longer kiss, but Herod kept it light, smiling against Enoch’s mouth.

“If you want to think I’m cleverer and more far-sighted than I am, I won’t disabuse you of the notion.” Herod pecked his lips again. “I’d like to try and keep you in awe.”

Enoch gave him a squeeze. “And so you do. Even if I’m a little worried we might traumatize Bart if he sees us like this.”

“All the better,” Herod sniffed. “He can use it in his performances.”


End file.
